Communism outperforms Capitalism

U.S. Sets Tariffs On Chinese Solar Panels:

 

The U.S. Commerce Department has imposed new import fees on solar panels made in China, finding that the Chinese government is improperly giving subsidies to manufacturers of the panels there.  The department said Tuesday it has found on a preliminary basis that Chinese solar panel makers have received government subsidies of 2.9 percent to 4.73 percent. Therefore the department said tariffs in the same proportions will be charged on Chinese panels imported into the U.S., depending on which company makes them.  The tariff amounts are considered small, but the decision could ratchet up trade tensions between the U.S. and China. Several U.S. solar panel makers had asked the government to impose steep tariffs on Chinese imports. They are struggling against stiff competition from China as well as weakening demand in Europe and other key markets, just as President Barack Obama is working to promote renewable energy.  "Today's announcement affirms what U.S. manufacturers have long known: Chinese manufacturers have received unfair ... subsidies," Steve Ostrenga, CEO of Helios Solar Works in Milwaukee, Wis., said in a statement. The company is a member of a group called the Coalition for American Solar Manufacturing.  On the other side, some U.S. companies argue that low-priced Chinese imports have helped consumers and promote rapid growth of the industry.  The new tariffs are low, making the Commerce Department decision "a relatively positive outcome for the U.S. solar industry and its 100,000 employees," said Jigar Shah, president of the Coalition for Affordable Solar Energy. "However, tariffs large or small will hurt American jobs and prolong our world's reliance on fossil fuels. Fortunately, this decision will not significantly raise solar prices in the United States."  Members of CASE include California-based SunEdison, Recurrent Energy, SolarCity and Westinghouse Solar, as well as China-based Suntech Power Holdings Co.  Commerce said it was putting off until May 17 a decision on whether Chinese companies are dumping the solar panels on world markets, selling them below cost.  Trade tensions with China are especially sensitive at a time when the U.S. and other Western economies want to boost technology exports to revive economic growth and reduce high unemployment.  The U.S. and China are two of the world's biggest markets for solar, wind and other renewable energy technology. Both governments are promoting their own suppliers in hopes of generating higher-paid technology jobs.  The U.S. manufacturers' complaints have been amplified by the controversy surrounding Solyndra Inc. a California-based solar panel maker that filed for bankruptcy protection after winning a $500 million federal loan from the Obama administration.  Solyndra's failure embarrassed the administration and prompted a lengthy review by congressional Republicans who are critical of Obama's green energy policies. Solyndra has cited Chinese competition as a key reason for its failure.  U.S. energy officials say China spent more than $30 billion last year to subsidize its solar industry. Obama said in November that China has "questionable competitive practices" in clean energy and that his administration has fought "these kinds of dumping activities." The administration will act to enforce trade laws where appropriate, Obama said.  SolarWorld Industries America Inc., the largest U.S. maker of silicon solar cells and panels and a subsidiary of Germany-based SolarWorld, has led the U.S. manufacturers' complaints.  China announced its own probe in November, saying it will investigate whether U.S. support for renewable energy companies improperly hurts foreign suppliers.

Monsanto GMO

Study ties GMO corn, soybeans to butterfly losses:

Genetically engineered corn and soybeans make it easy for farmers to eradicate weeds, including the long-lived and unruly milkweed.  But they might be putting the monarch butterfly in peril.  The rapid spread of herbicide-resistant crops has coincided with -- and may explain -- the dramatic decline in monarch numbers that has troubled some naturalists over the past decade, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Minnesota and Iowa State University.  Between 1999 and 2010, the same period in which so-called GMO crops became the norm for farmers, the number of monarch eggs declined by an estimated 81 percent across the Midwest, the researchers say. That's because milkweed -- the host plant for the eggs and caterpillars produced by one of one of the most gaudy and widely recognized of all North American butterflies -- has nearly disappeared from farm fields, they found.  It is one of the clearest examples yet of unintended consequences from the widespread use of genetically modified seeds, said John Pleasants, a monarch researcher from Iowa State in Ames, Iowa.  "When we put something out there, we don't know always what the consequences are," he said.  Pleasants and Karen Oberhauser, of the University of Minnesota, published their findings online last week in the journal Insect Conservation and Diversity.  "It is quite an extraordinary paper," said Chip Taylor, an insect ecologist at the University of Kansas and the director of research at Monarch Watch, a conservation group. He noted that Oberhauser and Pleasants were able to tie the loss of habitat to a decline in numbers across the country.  But the evidence they present -- estimates of the number of milkweed plants across the Corn Belt and a decade's worth of butterfly egg counts by an army of volunteer citizens -- is indirect, say others.  "It does not resolve the debate," said Leslie Ries, a University of Maryland professor who studies monarchs.  The orange and black butterflies migrate every year to the mountains of Mexico, where they collect in fluttering clouds in trees, an extraordinary event that has inspired festivals and tourism.  But for reasons that are not well understood, the number of butterflies that make it to Mexico -- half of which comes from the Midwest -- has been on the decline. This year, according to a report released Thursday, the butterflies occupied seven acres of trees in their refuge west of Mexico City -- 28 percent less than last year and a fraction of the 45 acres they occupied in 1996, a peak year.  Experts said last year's drought probably had a serious effect on the insects. Others say damage to the wintering grounds from logging and development are also playing a part, and that the number that make it to Mexico does not necessarily reflect the health of the species.  But some scientists have for years wondered whether the use of genetically modified crops is affecting the spring and summer reproduction in this country.  Earlier studies suggested that monarch caterpillars would die if they ate milkweed dusted with pollen from another kind of engineered seed known as BT corn. It contains a gene that produces a toxin that kills corn-eating pests.  That theory was disproved, but it led scientists to take a hard look at milkweed plants in corn and soybean fields, said Pleasants. "Surprisingly, monarchs use those milkweeds more heavily than milkweed outside [farm fields]," he said. The butterflies lay nearly four times as many eggs on farm field plants as on those in pastures or on roadsides, the researchers said.  More important, they also found "that milkweed in the fields was disappearing," he said. That's because more farmers are using a new kind of genetically modified seed developed by Monsanto, Roundup-ready corn and soybeans, that contain a gene allowing the plants to withstand Roundup, or glyphosate. That allows farmers to spray their fields without harming the crop.  Monsanto, which did not respond to a request for comment, says on its website the seeds help farmers increase yield. Today, it's used by 94 percent of soybean farmers and 72 percent of corn farmers, according to federal data.  Assessing the effect on milkweed plants both in and out of farm fields, was difficult, researchers said -- never mind the challenge of counting butterfly eggs.  Pleasants said he used data on the change in milkweed density in Iowa, and extrapolated those numbers to landscape use data across the Midwest. That showed an estimated 58 percent decline in milkweed plants throughout the Corn Belt, primarily on agricultural lands.  Oberhauser supplied data she has been collecting for years through the Monarch Larva Monitoring Project. Every week during the monarch breeding season, volunteers across the country go to the same patches of non-agricultural milkweed in their communities and count all the eggs they can find. That showed two things: Butterflies were not flocking to breed on plants outside agricultural fields; those numbers remained the same. And overall production, measured in eggs, declined 81 percent between 1999 and 2010.  Taylor said the new study should help make the case that increasing monarch habitat along roads in pastures, gardens and on conservation lands must become a national priority because the milkweed will never come back to farm fields, he said.  "The scale of the loss of habitat is so big that unless we compensate for it in some way, the population will decline to the point where it will disappear," he said.

Australian Carbon Cult

Carbon Cult: Ban flushing toilets, Pay per dump:

Australians could face 'pay as you dump' charges as part of a Toilet Tax. It's all in the name of "sustainability" - and part of a growing eco-movement to replace flushing conveniences with smelly and unhealthy inconvenience.  Water use experts Mike Young and Jim McColl, of Adelaide University and the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, respectively, presented new proposals to South Australia state parliament last week. The two renewed their call to create a market in sewerage, with the pricing element controlling scarcity. Such ideas aren't new, but they've been given a boost in recent years by a parallel movement. Sanitation saves lives, but UN-funded quangos which were once dedicated to improving human health now have mixed priorities. Take this example from the "Sustainable Sanitation Alliance":  "In order to be sustainable, a sanitation system has to be not only economically viable, socially acceptable, and technically and institutionally appropriate, it should also protect the environment and the natural resources."  The quango concludes, somewhat ruefully, that "there is probably no system which is absolutely sustainable".  It's a subtle difference in emphasis: from an optimistic vision in which simple technological innovation was used to reshape the planet for human happiness, innovation is now qualified in terms of environmental damage. It becomes a question of "balance", with human health now a factor in a trade-off.  Non-flushing are a feature of Britain's "Eco Towns", the harshly regulated and monitored new settlements proposed by the government. Here, where water is in abundance, they're needed to raise "awareness" of resource consumption. But the argument has now become entrenched in development.

New York Mayor supports deviant behavior

This story couldn't get any worse but Mayor Bloomberg Visits Goldman Employees After Smith Op-Ed, Support deviant behavior:

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg visited Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS)’s headquarters in Manhattan in a show of support after a departing employee publicly criticized the firm’s culture yesterday.  “The mayor stopped by to make clear that the company is a vital part of the city’s economy, and the kind of unfair attacks that we’re seeing can eventually hurt all New Yorkers,” said Stu Loeser, a spokesman for the mayor.  Bloomberg visited the firm today about 11 a.m. and met with Chief Executive Officer Lloyd C. Blankfein and numerous employees, Loeser said.  Greg Smith, an executive director who sold U.S. equity derivatives to clients in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, wrote in a New York Times opinion piece that he is leaving the firm after 12 years. Smith assailed the company’s treatment of clients and blamed Blankfein and President Gary D. Cohn for losing hold over the bank’s culture.  They responded in a memo to current and former employees, saying that Smith’s assertions don’t reflect the company’s values, culture or “how the vast majority of people at Goldman Sachs think about the firm and the work it does on behalf of our clients.” David Wells, a bank spokesman, didn’t immediately return a call seeking comment after business hours.  The mayor is founder and majority owner of Bloomberg News parent Bloomberg LP.  It's seems important to support companies that rip-off clients in the financial community, a show of support for Goldman Sachs and its deviant behavior.  Sure, like anyone believe's him or Bloomberg news now.  This seems all too similar to Sopa, I hope a backlash comes into effect.

    

NSA partners with Google

DOJ Asks Court To Keep Secret Any PARTNERSHIP Between GOOGLE And NSA:

The Justice Department refuses to divulge whatever sort of agreement there may be between Google and the National Security Agency. Not that there is one, of course.

Mike Scarcella in The Legal Times writes about The Justice Department defending the government’s refusal to discuss, or acknowledge the existence of, “any cooperative research and development agreement between Google and the National Security Agency.”

 The Washington based advocacy group Electronic Privacy Information Center sued in federal district court here to obtain documents about any such agreement between the Internet search giant and the security agency.

The NSA responded to the suit with a so-called “Glomar” response in which the agency said it could neither confirm nor deny whether any responsive records exist. U.S. District Judge Richard Leon in Washington sided with the government last July.

Cultural stereotypes rooted in Genetic's

Why the British are freethinking and the Chinese love conformity: It's all in the genes claim scientists:

Cultural stereotypes may be deeply rooted in our genetic makeup, say scientists.  Common traits like British individualism and Chinese conformity could be attributed to genetic differences between races according to a new study.  The study, by the department of psychology at Northwestern University in Illinois, suggests that the individualism seen in western nations, and the higher levels of collectivism and family loyalty found in Asian cultures, are caused by differences in the prevalence of particular genes. Common traits like British individualism and Chinese conformity could be attributed to genetic differences between races according to new research.  'We demonstrate for the first time a robust association between cultural values of individualism–collectivism and the serotonin transporter gene,' said Joan Chiao, from the department of psychology at Northwestern University.  Chiao and her colleagues combined data from global genetic surveys, looking at variations in the prevalence of various genes. The findings were matched with other research which ranked nations by levels of individualism and collectivism.  The team focused their attentions on the gene that controls levels of serotonin, a chemical in the brain which regulates mood and emotions.

Japanese men praying.  Their studies found that one version of the gene was far more common in western populations which, they said, was associated with individualistic and freethinking behavior.  Another version of the same gene, which was prevalent in Asian populations, they said was associated with collectivism and a greater willingness to put the common good first.  People with this gene appeared to have a different response to serotonin.

 A protestor at the Occupy site in front of St Paul's in London.  If they are confirmed, the findings made by Chiao and her colleagues would suggest that races may have a number of inherent psychological differences — just as they differ in physical appearances.  Chiao suggests that the version of the gene predominating in Asian populations is associated with heightened anxiety levels and increased risk of depression.  She adds that such populations respond by structuring their society to ward off those negative effects.  The success of such social structures would then ensure that the gene would spread.  She added the findings showed how culture could exert a powerful influence on human genetics and evolution.

10,000 Year old Mammoth

Russia Plans to Clone 10,000-Year-Old Woolly Mammoth:

Russian scientists and a South Korean colleague will attempt to clone a woolly mammoth from a specimen frozen in the Siberian tundra for 10,000 years, RIA Novosti reported.  The Institute of Applied Ecology in Siberia’s Yakutsk region plan to implant genetic material from the mammoth into an egg of a live female elephant, the state-run Russian news service said.  The elephant will carry the fetus for 22 months and “hopefully give birth to a live baby mammoth,” RIA cited an unidentified official from the institute as saying.

FDA loss of drug control

Drug data reveal sneaky side effects:

An algorithm designed by US scientists to trawl through a plethora of drug interactions has yielded thousands of previously unknown side effects caused by taking drugs in combination.  The work, published today in Science Translational Medicine1, provides a way to sort through the hundreds of thousands of 'adverse events' reported to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) each year. “It’s a step in the direction of a complete catalogue of drug–drug interactions,” says the study's lead author, Russ Altman, a bioengineer at Stanford University in California.  Pills in pill boxes.  A program predicts the potential side-effects of mixing different pills.  Although clinical trials are often designed to assess the safety of a drug in addition to how well it works, the size of the trials needed to detect the full range of drug interactions would surpass even the large, late-stage clinical trials sometimes required for drug approval. Furthermore, clinical trials are often done in controlled settings, using carefully defined criteria to determine which patients are eligible for enrollment — including other conditions they might have and which medicines they can take alongside the trial drug.  Once a drug hits the market, however, things can get messy as unknown side-effects pop up. And that’s where Altman’s algorithm comes in.  “Even if you show a drug is safe in a clinical trial, that doesn’t mean it’s going to be safe in the real world,” says Paul Watkins, director of the Hamner–University of North Carolina Institute for Drug Safety Sciences in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, who was not involved in the work. “This approach is addressing a better way to rapidly assess a drug’s safety in the real world once it is approved.”

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Altman and his colleagues have been studying drug–drug interactions as a way to understand how a person’s genes influence their response to pharmaceuticals. To do that, he says, you must first have a good picture of the molecular mechanisms that underlie drug responses.  “Adverse events are incredibly valuable clues to what these drugs are doing in the body,” Altman says. “They can tell you the other pathways in the cell that are being tickled by these drugs.”  But reports of adverse drug events are notoriously prone to bias. For example, cholesterol-lowering treatments are more often taken by older patients, and so conditions associated with ageing, such as heart attack, could be wrongly linked to a drug as a side effect.  Altman and his colleagues reduced this bias by adopting an approach sometimes used in observational clinical trials. They developed an algorithm that would match data from each drug-exposed patient to a nonexposed control patient with the same condition. The approach automatically corrected for several known sources of bias, including those linked to gender, age and disease1.  The team then used this method to compile a database of 1,332 drugs and possible side effects that were not listed on the labels of those drugs. The algorithm came up with an average of 329 previously unknown adverse events for each drug — far surpassing the average of 69 side effects listed on most drug labels.  The team also compiled a similar database looking at interactions between pairs of drugs, which yielded many more possible side effects than could be attributed to either drug alone. When the data were broken down by drug class, the most striking effect was seen when diuretics called thiazides, often prescribed to treat high blood pressure and edema, were used in combination with a class of drugs called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, used to treat depression. Compared with people who used either drug alone, patients who used both drugs were significantly more likely to experience a heart condition known as prolonged QT, which is associated with an increased risk of irregular heartbeats and sudden death.  A search of electronic medical records from Stanford University Hospital confirmed the relationship between these two drug classes, revealing at roughly 1.5-fold increase in the likelihood of prolonged QT when the drugs were combined, compared to when either drug was taken alone. Altman says that the next step will be to test this finding further, possibly by conducting a clinical trial in which patients are given both drugs and then monitored for prolonged QT.  What should the drug regulators do with the thousands of possible side effects Altman and his team uncovered? That is a complex problem, says Watkins, who adds that regulators will have to factor in the availability of alternative treatments and the magnitude and seriousness of the side effect, among other considerations.  Altman, who serves as an adviser on the FDA’s Science Board, says that he plans to present his results to the agency. He suggests that the algorithm could be used with the FDA’s existing drug-surveillance programs to remove bias. However, he points out the enormity of the task: “We’ve just released a database with 10,000 or more adverse events,” he says. “I do not expect the FDA to uncritically take these results and add them to every drug label.”

Google's Semantic Search Technology

Google plans major overhaul to search engine:

Google is giving its tried-and-true web-search formula a makeover as it tries to fix the shortcomings of today's technology and maintain its dominant market share.  Over the next few months, Google's search engine will begin spitting out more than a list of blue web links. It will also present more facts and direct answers to queries at the top of the search-results page.  The changes to search are among the biggest in the company's history and could affect millions of websites that rely on Google's current page-ranking results. At the same time, they could give Google more ways to serve up advertisements.  Google isn't replacing its current keyword-search system, which determines the importance of a website based on the words it contains, how often other sites link to it, and dozens of other measures. Rather, the company is aiming to provide more relevant results by incorporating technology called "semantic search," which refers to the process of understanding the actual meaning of words.  Amit Singhal, a top Google search executive, said in a recent interview that the search engine will better match search queries with a database containing hundreds of millions of "entities" -- people, places and things -- which the company has quietly amassed in the past two years. Semantic search can help associate different words with one another, such as a company (Google) with its founders (Larry Page and Sergey Brin).  Google search will look more like "how humans understand the world," Singhal said, noting that for many searches today, "we cross our fingers and hope there's a web page out there with the answer." Some major changes will show up in the coming months, people familiar with the initiative said, but Singhal said Google is undergoing a years-long process to enter the "next generation of search."  Under the shift, people who search for "Lake Tahoe" will see key "attributes" that the search engine knows about the lake, such as its location, altitude, average temperature or salt content. In contrast, those who search for "Lake Tahoe" today would get only links to the lake's visitor bureau website, its dedicated page on Wikipedia.com, and a link to a relevant map.  For a more complex question such as, "What are the 10 largest lakes in California?" Google might provide the answer instead of just links to other sites.  The coming shift has major implications for Google, which dominates the Internet search market with around 66 percent market share and more than 75 percent of all search-ad revenue. The Mountain View, Calif., companies has succeeded because of the strength and ease of its keyword-search technology, which in turn fueled Google's search ads, which appear next to search results. That business now generates the majority of Google's $37 billion in annual revenue.  Now Google is taking action to maintain that lead. The Internet giant is trying to stay ahead of Microsoft's Bing in web search, catch up to Apple's Siri voice-activated mobile search, and beat back rivals in niches such as product search.

Google servers in complete darkness

Just how far will Google go to hide its custom-built data center hardware from the rest of the world?

In one Silicon Valley data center, the company is apparently so paranoid about competitors catching a glimpse of its gear, it’s been known to keep its server cages in complete darkness, outfitting its technical staff like miners and sending them spelunking into the cages with lights on their heads.  “Many [companies] try to keep things covered up. There’s a lot of valuable intellectual property in here,” says Chris Sharp, general manager of content and cloud at Equinix, as he walks through the company’s data center. “But we were always amazed by Google and the helmets.”  Google is one of many big-name Web outfits that lease data center space from Equinix—a company whose massive computing facilities serve as hubs for the world’s biggest Internet providers. All the big Web names set up shop in these data centers, so that they too can plug into the hub. The irony is that they must also share space with their biggest rivals, and this may cause some unease with companies that see their hardware as a competitive advantage best hidden from others.  About two years ago, Chris Sharp says, Google unscrewed all the light bulbs inside the hardware cages it occupied at that Equinix data center. “They had us turn off all overhead lights too, and their guys put on those helmets with lights you see miners wear,” he tells Wired. “Presumably, they were bringing up custom-built gear they didn’t want anyone else to see.”  Google declined to comment on Sharp’s little anecdote. But the tale is not surprising. Google designs its own servers and its own networking gear, and though it still leases space in third-party data centers such as the Equinix facility, it’s now designing and building its own data centers as well. These designs are meant to improve the performance of the company’s Web services but also save power and money. More so than any other outfit, Google views its data center work as an important advantage over competitors.  That said, Google has actually loosened up in recent years. In 2009, the company opened a window into the first custom-built data center it had built five years before, and it has discussed parts of its new facilities. But many of its operations remain a mystery.  Some believe this should change. Facebook now designs its own data centers and servers, and as a direct response to Google’s approach, the social-networking outfit has “open sourced” its designs, hoping to encourage collaboration on designs across the industry. This, Facebook says, will allow the rest of the world to save power in much the same way Google has done and ultimately, well, save the planet.  Several companies have already embraced this effort, including Netflix, the Texas-based cloud provider Rackspace and Japanese tech giant NTT Data. But others still prefer to keep their secret hardware secret.  Amazon, for instance, takes a Google-like approach. The company says very little about the facilities it runs or the hardware in those facilities. Apparently, the company is working with server sellers such as ZT Technologies to customize its servers, and it has followed Google’s lead in constructing its data centers with modular shipping containers. But it’s unclear just how far the company has gone towards designing and building its own hardware.  This week, the Internet is rife with speculation about just how many machines back the company’s Elastic Compute Cloud service.  At Google, employees sign strict non-disclosure agreements that bar them from discussing what goes on inside the company’s data centers—and apparently, this agreement is open-ended. That alone puts a lid on Google’s deepest secrets. We’ve seen the NDA in action—many times. But for Google, and others, there’s an added problem when they set up shop in a “co-location” facility like the data centers run by Equinix.  The nature of the beast is that you’re sharing space with competitors. Equinix trumpets its data centers as places where the giants of the Web can improve performance by plugging their gear straight into the world’s biggest Internet carriers—and into each other. The company began life offering a service—the Internet Core Exchange—that connected all the major Internet service providers, and now it lets other outfits plug into this carrier hub.  According to Sharp, over 70 carriers used the company’s main data center in San Jose, California. “We were a place for network operators to efficiently hand off traffic, and that’s the legacy that created Equinix,” Sharp says. “Not only are networks leveraging that to talk to each other, but [websites] are too.”  Security is high in the company’s facilities. Hand geometry readers—i. e. Fingerprint readers that extend beyond fingerprints—guard access to the data center floor. There’s a security camera looking at you every time you turn around. And each company can contain their gear in their own cages, protected by still more hand readers. But if you’re on the floor, you can peer into the cages. For cooling purposes, they’re not walled off. While some companies proudly display their logo on the side of their machines, the Googles of the world do their best to hide themselves. To keep competitors from eying their gear, Sharp says, many companies keep the lights off inside their cages when no one’s working on them. But others go even further.

Goldman Sachs ripping off Clients

Goldman Employee Criticizes Firm for Ripping Off Clients:

A departing Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) employee mounted an unprecedented public attack on its “toxic and destructive” culture in a New York Times opinion piece, becoming the first serving insider to openly criticize the firm.  Greg Smith, identified by the newspaper as an executive director and head of the bank’s U.S. equity derivatives business in Europe, will leave the firm after 12 years, blaming Chief Executive Officer Lloyd C. Blankfein and President Gary D. Cohn for losing hold over the firm’s culture. Executive directors are junior to managing directors and partners, the most senior rank.  A departing Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Employee mounted an unprecedented public attack on its "toxic and destructive" culture in a New York Times opinion piece, becoming the first serving insider to openly criticize the firm. Goldman Sachs said it disagreed with comments made by Greg Smith, identified by the newspaper as an executive director and head of the firm’s U.S. equity derivatives business in Europe. Gigi Stone and Christine Harper report on Bloomberg Television's "In the Loop."  Richard Bove, an analyst at Rochdale Securities LLC, talks about the results of Federal Reserve bank stress tests and a New York Times opinion piece by a departing Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Employee. Bove speaks on Bloomberg Television's “InBusiness With Margaret Brennan.”  Bloomberg's Erik Schatzker, Stephanie Ruhle, Sara Eisen and Scarlet Fu report on an opinion piece in today's New York Times written by Greg Smith, a departing employee from Goldman Sachs, attacking the firm's culture. They speak on Bloomberg Television's "Inside Track."

“I attend derivatives sales meetings where not one single minute is spent asking questions about how we can help clients,” Smith, a Stanford University graduate, wrote in the New York Times. “It’s purely about how we can make the most possible money off of them.”  The attack adds to criticism from politicians and protesters who blame the company for triggering the financial crisis and profiting at clients’ expense. Goldman Sachs has faced congressional hearings probing its role in the financial crisis and paid $550 million in 2010 to settle a lawsuit accusing it of misleading investors in a collateralized debt obligation. “This will certainly be damaging for the firm,” said John Purcell, founder of London-based executive search firm Purcell & Co. “It’s obviously a very heartfelt piece. Maybe he’s made a sufficient amount of money in his life that he isn’t particularly bothered if he isn’t employed in financial services again and works in a completely different world like teaching.”  Goldman Sachs fell $4.17, or 3.4 percent, to $120.37 in New York trading at 1:34 p.m.  A call to Smith’s mobile phone in London wasn’t answered. Goldman Sachs said it disagreed with his criticism.  “In our view, we will only be successful if our clients are successful,” the firm said in a statement. “This fundamental truth lies at the heart of how we conduct ourselves.” “It makes me ill how callously people talk about ripping their clients off,” Smith wrote. “‘Over the last 12 months I have seen five different managing directors refer to their own clients as ‘‘Muppets,’’ sometimes over internal e-mail.’’Blankfein and Cohn addressed the criticism in a memo to employees today. ‘‘In a company of our size, it is not shocking that some people could feel disgruntled,’’ they said in the memo. ‘‘A recent survey of employees found that 89 percent believe the firm provides ‘exceptional service’ to clients and that a similar percentage of the firm’s 12,000 vice presidents, the rank held by Smith, felt that way, they said.  Employees are allowed to express concerns anonymously, according to the memo. ‘‘We are not aware that the writer of the opinion piece expressed misgivings through this avenue, however, if an individual expresses issues, we examine them carefully and we will be doing so in this case,’’ they said.  Smith blamed the company’s management for promoting employees who made money for the firm, often by getting customers to buy products that Goldman Sachs was trying to get rid of. If clients can’t trust the firm, they will stop doing business with it, however smart its employees, Smith wrote in the Times.‘‘Culture was always a vital part of Goldman Sachs’s success,” he wrote in the New York Times. “It revolved around teamwork, integrity, a spirit of humility, and always doing right by our clients,” he said. “It wasn’t just about making money; this alone will not sustain a firm for so long. It had something to do with pride and belief in the organization. I am sad to say that I look around today and see virtually no trace of the culture that made me love working for this firm.”  Goldman Sachs’s score was among the lowest in a recent study of corporate reputations, according to a Feb. 13 statements from Harris Interactive Inc. (HPOL), a market research firm.

Trans fat causes aggression

More trans fat consumption linked to greater aggression:

Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have shown – by each of a range of measures, in men and women of all ages, in Caucasians and minorities – that consumption of dietary trans fatty acids (dTFAs) is associated with irritability and aggression.  The study of nearly 1,000 men and women provides the first evidence linking dTFAs with adverse behaviors that impacted others, ranging from impatience to overt aggression. The research, led by Beatrice Golomb, MD, PhD, associate professor in the UC San Diego Department of Medicine, has been published online by PLoS ONE.  Dietary trans fatty acids are primarily products of hydrogenation, which makes unsaturated oils solid at room temperature. They are present at high levels in margarines, shortenings and prepared foods. Adverse health effects of dTFAs have been identified in lipid levels, metabolic function, insulin resistance, oxidation, inflammation, and cardiac health.  The UC San Diego team used baseline dietary information and behavioral assessments of 945 adult men and women to analyze the relationship between dTFAs and aggression or irritability. The survey measured such factors as a life history of aggression, conflict tactics and self-rated impatience and irritability, as well as an “overt aggression” scale that tallies recent aggressive behaviors. Analyses were adjusted for sex, age, education, and use of alcohol or tobacco products.  “We found that greater trans fatty acids were significantly associated with greater aggression, and were more consistently predictive of aggression and irritability, across the measures tested, than the other known aggression predictors that were assessed,” said Golomb. “If the association between trans fats and aggressive behavior proves to be causal, this adds further rationale to recommendations to avoid eating trans fats, or including them in foods provided at institutions like schools and prisons, since the detrimental effects of trans fats may extend beyond the person who consumes them to affect others.”

Google hires Darpa's Military Director

DARPA director exits agency for Google, assumes mysterious role:

Not even the federal government's factory of sci-fi dreams can hold off the likes of Google's recruiters. According to Wired, Regina Dugan, DARPA's current director, will be moving on from the Department of Defense's fantastical research arm for an unspecified "senior executive position" with the folks from Mountain View. Dugan's served in her role for the past three years, winning over the likes of the Pentagon by shifting her agency's focus from out-there R&D experiments to more practical military applications, while also ruffling a few feathers with her brazen statements. No word was given on when exactly she'll officially join the search giant's ranks other than a vague mention of "sometime in the next few weeks.

Irish Nun 87 sexual abuse charges

An Irish nun is to appear before a special sitting of the country’s Circuit Court on 87 charges of the sexual abuse of primary school girls:



The nun, whose name has been withheld by the State to protect her victims, appeared at Sligo Circuit Court on Tuesday. Her case, thought to be the first of its kind in Ireland, has been listed for mention again on May 22nd.  Judge Rory McCabe has ordered the special sitting after the Director of Public Prosecutions outlined the huge number of files to be considered by the prosecution’s legal team.   The case was transferred from another county only last week according to DPP barrister Dara Foynes.  Newspaper reports say that several of the nun’s alleged victims were in court for the brief hearing.  Those present heard the barrister for the accused woman complain about the delay in the trial. She said her client had been charged in January 2010.   In response, Foynes said a ‘voluminous’ number of files had only been given to prosecution solicitor Hugh Sheridan last week after the transfer of the case from another county.

Unearthed remains 167 Mexicans discovered

Authorities find remains of 167 people in southern Mexico:

Authorities have found the remains of 167 people, believed to be at least 50 years old, in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas, officials said.  The remains were discovered inside a cave on the Nuevo Ojo de Agua ranch, and show no visible signs of violence, according to a statement from state prosecutors  Studies will be done to determine the age, sex and cause of death of each person, it read. The prosecutors promised not to rule out "any line of investigation."  Though the remains are thought to be more than half a century old, the discovery is still sure to attract attention in a country where mass graves have been unearthed in recent years.  The bodies of 72 migrants from Central and South America were discovered at a ranch in northern Mexico in August 2010. In the same area, authorities found mass graves last year, containing the remains of nearly 200 people. They began finding the graves while investigating the kidnappings of bus passengers.

3-D Nano printer World Record

3-D Printer With Nano-Precision:

Printing three-dimensional objects with incredibly fine details is now possible using "two-photon lithography." With this technology, tiny structures on a nanometer scale can be fabricated. Researchers at the Vienna University of Technology (TU Vienna) have now made a major breakthrough in speeding up this printing technique: The high-precision-3D-printer at TU Vienna is orders of magnitude faster than similar devices. This opens up completely new areas of application, such as in medicine.  Setting a New World Record.  The 3D printer uses a liquid resin, which is hardened at precisely the correct spots by a focused laser beam. The focal point of the laser beam is guided through the resin by movable mirrors and leaves behind a hardened line of solid polymer, just a few hundred nanometers wide. This fine resolution enables the creation of intricately structured sculptures as tiny as a grain of sand. "Until now, this technique used to be quite slow," says Professor Jürgen Stampfl from the Institute of Materials Science and Technology at the TU Vienna. "The printing speed used to be measured in millimeters per second -- our device can do five meters in one second." In two-photon lithography, this is a world record.  This amazing progress was made possible by combining several new ideas. "It was crucial to improve the steering mechanism of the mirrors," says Jan Torgersen (TU Vienna). The mirrors are continuously in motion during the printing process. The acceleration and deceleration-periods have to be tuned very precisely to achieve high-resolution results at a record-breaking speed.  Photoactive Molecules Harden the Resin.  3D-printing is not all about mechanics -- chemists had a crucial role to play in this project too. "The resin contains molecules, which are activated by the laser light. They induce a chain reaction in other components of the resin, so-called monomers, and turn them into a solid," says Jan Torgersen. These initiator molecules are only activated if they absorb two photons of the laser beam at once -- and this only happens in the very center of the laser beam, where the intensity is highest. In contrast to conventional 3D-printing techniques, solid material can be created anywhere within the liquid resin rather than on top of the previously created layer only. Therefore, the working surface does not have to be specially prepared before the next layer can be produced, which saves a lot of time. A team of chemists led by Professor Robert Liska (TU Vienna) developed the suitable ingredients for this special resin.  Researchers all over the world are working on 3D printers today -- at universities as well as in industry. Because of the dramatically increased speed, much larger objects can now be created in a given period of time. This makes two-photon-lithography an interesting technique for industry.  At the TU Vienna, scientists are now developing bio-compatible resins for medical applications. They can be used to create scaffolds to which living cells can attach themselves facilitating the systematic creation of biological tissues. The 3d printer could also be used to create tailor made construction parts for biomedical technology or nanotechnology.

0.3mm Organic Battery

NEC develops 0.3mm thick organic battery:

[caption id="attachment_2337" align="aligncenter" width="1024" caption="Organic Battery"]

Organic batteries are an exciting area of research at the moment due to the benefits and potential they have to power our gadgets in the future. One of the companies at the forefront of organic battery development is NEC, which has been working on these polymer-based batteries since 2001 and had its first major release in 2005.  Organic batteries are desirable because they have a very high energy density considering their size, use no heavy metals, and are incredibly thin. That last feature is highlighted by NEC’s latest breakthrough, which has seen the creation of a 0.3mm thick organic radical battery.  Such a thin battery can be placed inside objects that are already very limited in thickness, for example, a sheet of e-paper, and of course a smart card or credit card. Until now the thickness was limited to 0.7mm, but NEC managed to cut that by over 50% all thanks to printed components.  The prototype battery was created by printing an integrated circuit and battery directly on to a polymer film. Such components allowed for a complete system to be built including a display, antenna, and encryption system. All of which sounds like the perfect solution for next-generation smart cards.  As for the power on offer from this super-thin battery, output is rated as 5kW/L with a capacity of 3mAh. In real terms that means the integrated display can be refreshed 2,000x, or the antenna can be used to transmit data 35x before a recharge is required. The recharge only takes around 30 seconds to top up the battery fully, and the capacity is only reduced by 25% after 500 charges.

Deformity-inducing chemical waste dump

Ten Percent of China is a Steaming Toxic Metal Land Dump:

If you live in China, the ground beneath your feet is probably polluted with heavy metal. We don’t mean the stuff that’s leaking out of Beijing’s awful rock bars.  On Monday, Wan Bentai, the chief engineer for China’s Ministry of Environmental Protection, stated that about 100,000 of China’s 1.22 million square kilometers, or about ten percent, of farmland is now officially polluted by lead, mercury, cancer-causing cadmium and other harmful heavy metals in levels that go above and beyond global standards.  China’s rapid industrialization has grown over the past three decades, and today it is the world’s largest consumer of refined lead, with battery production making up a majority of that consumption. The consequences of this mega-expanding manufacturing system have been enormous. As Zhang Jianxin, a researcher with the Hunan Planning Institute of Land and Resources explains, “From a historical perspective, we see a growing number of land pollution cases associated with heavy metals in China over the past three decades.”  Among these metals which pollute land in the form of run-off are lead, mercury, and cadmium. Human exposure to this industrial cocktail can lead to stunted growth as well as damage to the nerves, kidneys, and reproductive systems. These symptoms have been seen at increasing rates in entire villages around China for the past few years.  Metal pollution is by no means new on the environmental front, but with the news that ten percent of land in China is now affected, what remains startling is China’s failure to adress the issue. In 2011 alone there have been eleven reported cases of metal poisonings on a village scale, nine of those cases involving lead in the blood.  According to a 75-page report issued by Human Rights Watch in June, Chinese officials have reacted to reports of lead poisoning in areas across the country by imposing arbitrary limits for blood testing, failing to shut down harmful illegal operations or enforce waste regulations and encouraging people to eat foods like apples, eggs, milk and garlic.  China’s government has since released a plan to cut heavy metal pollution in certain areas by 15 percent by 2015. Unfortunately, when a tenth of the country is filled with deformity-inducing chemical waste, a slight reduction in pollution in a few areas just doesn’t seem like much.

G.E. 14 Billion No Tax Profit

Feingold Speaks Out On Immelt/GE Fiasco:

You have probably heard that the General Electric Corporation made about $14.2 billion in profits last year, and that didn't pay a single penny in taxes on that huge profit. Even worse, they actually got the government to give them $3.2 billion. That's not just wrong, it's absolutely obscene!  And GE's absurdity doesn't stop there. They have doubled the already enormous salary of their CEO, Jeffrey Immelt. Now a reasonable person might think that a company with a profit of $14.2 billion and no tax bill would not only reward their management but also all of their workers. But that would be wrong. The company is now planning to ask their employees to take cuts in pay and benefits. This has to be the very definition of greed gone out-of-control.  But what really defies belief is that President Obama has now appointed GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt to be the chairman of the White House Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. That's right. The CEO of a company that made $14.2 billion in profit and still wants to cut wages and benefits for its workers is going to be giving jobs advice to the president. That's like asking the fox how to build a safe and secure chicken coop!  Well, Russ Feingold doesn't think this makes much sense either. Here's what he has to say about this fiasco.  It's everything that's wrong with corporate power today.  News broke last week that General Electric, America's largest corporation, made $14,200,000,000 in profits last year and paid $0 in taxes -- that's right, zero dollars in taxes. At the same time, C.E.O. Jeffrey Immelt saw his compensation double. Now I hear that GE is expected to ask 15,000 of their unionized workers to make major concessions in wages and benefits.  But what really adds insult to injury is the prestigious and influential position Jeffrey Immelt holds as chair of President Obama's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness.  That's wrong. Someone like Immelt, who has helped his company evade taxes on its huge profits -- and is now looking to workers to take major pay cuts after his compensation was doubled -- should not lead the administration's effort to create jobs.  We cannot stand by and watch while we are led down this road. Mr. Immelt must step down from the president's jobs panel -- and if he won't, President Obama needs to ask for his resignation.  How can someone like Immelt be given the responsibility of heading a jobs creation task force when his company has been creating more jobs overseas while reducing its American workforce? And under Immelt's direction, GE spends hundreds of millions of dollars hiring lawyers and lobbyists to evade taxes.  All of this at a time when Fox News and the right wing are demonizing public workers, like teachers, as the cause of our economic problems.  It's time for policymakers to stop coddling corporate interests, and get to work creating jobs and wealth for Main Street. We shouldn't reward wealthy CEOs and Wall Street for behavior that undermines the nation's economy.  President Obama has been talking about how we must "win the future," and I agree with him in that goal. Jeffrey Immelt is not the person for that job.

Green products contain hidden toxic chemicals

Tests Find Toxics in Broad Array of Consumer Products:

Toxic chemicals linked to the rising rates of endocrine disruption related disease were found in a broad array of consumer products and reported in a peer reviewed article in Environmental Health Perspectives on March 8. The Silent Spring Institute tested 213 consumer products, including cleaning products, cosmetics, sunscreens, shower curtains, air fresheners, drier sheets, and other household goods made by Colgate, Unilever, S.C. Johnson, Johnson and Johnson, Procter & Gamble, Seventh Generation, and Ecover among other manufacturers.  “These test results show that both conventional and so-called green products contain hidden toxic chemicals that are not on product labels—so consumers have no way of avoiding them,” says Alexandra Scranton from Women’s Voices for the Earth, who recently conducted their own tests for hidden toxic chemicals in 20 top brand-name cleaning products. “Companies need to phase out these harmful chemicals, and we need a policy that standardizes labeling guidelines for cleaning products, so companies can’t keep these toxic chemicals a secret.”  Environmental health advocates across the nation see this new study as confirmation that ubiquitous chemical exposure is playing a factor in adverse health impacts.  “Silent Spring used Battelle Labs in Ohio, and they found 55 chemicals associated with endocrine disruption or with asthma, including parabens, BPA, triclosan, Alkylphenols, cyclosiloxanes,” said Martha Arguello, with Physicians for Social Responsibility—Los Angeles. “It is not good science to assume that cumulative exposure to these chemicals is safe.”  “This new study found PVC products, including a pillow protector and shower curtain, contained high levels of the toxic phthalate DEHP,” said Mike Schade from the Center for Health, Environment & Justice. “Phthalates have been banned in toys, but are widespread in many PVC products children coming in contact with in schools and even at home. Phthalates have been linked to asthma, adverse impacts on brain development, and reproductive health problems in baby boys. Thankfully, there are safer cost-effective alternatives to phthalate-laden PVC products for our schools and homes.”  “Many  products are targeted to women of color who suffer from high health disparities that can be linked directly to the endocrine disruptors found in these products. We can only hope that studies like this one inspire better policies and regulations of these dangerous chemicals,” said Janette Robinson-Flint from Black Women for Wellness. “Mother's shouldn’t have to be a biochemist to protect themselves and their families from toxic chemicals in everyday products.” “We know many folks have tested positive for BPA and Triclosan in our human Biomonitoring studies,” said Sharyle Patton, director of the Biomonitoring Resource Center at Commonweal. “One has to wonder if rising rates of  associated health problems  are linked to these exposures.”  Caroline Cox, research director, Center for Environmental Health, said, “These unnecessary, untested and unlabeled chemicals in dozens of everyday products threaten our children’s and families’ health. It’s past time for federal action that calls for evaluating chemicals for safety before they end up contaminating our homes and our bodies.”  “This is another example of the failure of federal law to protect workers and consumers,” said Sarah Doll from SAFER States. “States have been acting to protect consumers from toxic chemicals in products for years now, and will continue to move on these issues in the absence of federal reform.”  The products were tested in 2008, and the study authors acknowledge that product samples can vary and that some formulations may have changed.

Drunk American soldier killing Civilians

American Soldier Murders 16 Civilians in Afghanistan:

An American soldier opened fire on civilians in Kandahar Sunday, killing 16 Afghans including 9 children and 3 women. While most reports say a single soldier is accountable for the massacre, some eyewitness accountsmaintain it was a group of American soldiers "who were laughing and appeared drunk."  Afghan President Hamid Karzai demanded an explanation for these "intentional murders." The White House released a statement earlier today, in which they said they are "deeply concerned" and "monitoring the situation closely."  Meanwhile, General John Allen, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, promises a "rapid and thorough investigation" into the massacre.

This deeply appalling incident in no way represents the values of [International Security Assistance Force] and coalition troops or the abiding respect we feel for the Afghan people. Nor does it impugn or diminish the spirit of cooperation and partnership we have worked so hard to foster with the Afghan National Security Forces.

The soldier's motivation for the shooting spree is still unclear. He is currently being held in custody.  UPDATE:  President Obama has issued a statement in light of the shooting.

I offer my condolences to the families and loved ones of those who lost their lives, and to the people of Afghanistan, who have endured too much violence and suffering.

This incident is tragic and shocking, and does not represent the exceptional character of our military and the respect that the United States has for the people of Afghanistan.

Immortality found in nature

"Immortal" Jellyfish Swarm World's Oceans:

A potentially "immortal" jellyfish species that can age backward—the Benjamin Button of the deep—is silently invading the world's oceans, swarm by swarm, a recent study says.  Like the Brad Pitt movie character, the immortal jellyfish transforms from an adult back into a baby, but with an added bonus: Unlike Benjamin Button, the jellyfish can do it over and over again—though apparently only as an emergency measure.

About as wide as a human pinky nail when fully grown, the immortal jellyfish (scientific name: Turritopsis dohrnii) was discovered in the Mediterranean Sea in 1883. But its unique ability was not discovered until the 1990s.  How the Jellyfish Becomes "Immortal".  Turritopsis typically reproduces the old-fashioned way, by the meeting of free-floating sperm and eggs. And most of the time they die the old-fashioned way too.  But when starvation, physical damage, or other crises arise, "instead of sure death, [Turritopsis] transforms all of its existing cells into a younger state," said study author Maria Pia Miglietta, a researcher at Pennsylvania State University.  The jellyfish turns itself into a bloblike cyst, which then develops into a polyp colony, essentially the first stage in jellyfish life.  The jellyfish's cells are often completely transformed in the process. Muscle cells can become nerve cells or even sperm or eggs.  Through asexual reproduction, the resulting polyp colony can spawn hundreds of genetically identical jellyfish—near perfect copies of the original adult.  This unique approach to hardship may be helping Turritopsis swarms spread throughout the world's oceans.

Chinese kids rescued from Human Traffickers

14 Chinese kids rescued from human traffickers:

At least 14 children were rescued and 38 suspects arrested when police busted two human trafficking rings in China, police said Saturday.  The rings were busted in southwest China’s Guizhou province, Xinhua reported.  A joint operation was carried out by police of Guizhou, Henan, Chongqing, and Zhejiang, police said.  The rings were identified after police seized two suspects, surnamed Wang and Xiao, on a train along with two babies in December last year.  Wang and Xiao purchased children in Guizhou and transferred them by train to Henan province for sale, police said.  DNA tests would be carried on the rescued children to find their families. Over 3,000 gangs involved in human trafficking were busted across China last year, and more than 15,000 women and 8,000 children rescued by police.

Positive Energy change for Japan

 What appears to be an array of metal flower petals is not an art installation but part of a cutting-edge solar-power system meant to address the critical power shortage Japan now faces in the wake of the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011.

The disaster, which triggered a crippling nuclear accident at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, reignited worldwide debate about the safety of nuclear power and forced Japan to reevaluate its energy strategy.  Of Japan's 54 nuclear reactors, 52 have been shut down for maintenance; the remaining two are set to go offline this spring. The reactors are likely to remain inoperative while Japan's central and local governments assess which (if any) of them can be restarted, leaving the country to make up for a 30-percent loss in power generation.  Rising electricity prices and limited supply threaten to hamper the recovery for manufacturers. So it makes sense that Solar Techno Park, the country's first solar-power research facility, is operated not by the government but by a unit of the Tokyo-based JFE, the world's fifth-largest steelmaker. Given the energy-intensive nature of steel production, reliable power will be key to the future of Japan's steel industry. The facility, which opened in October last year, is developing advanced technology in solar light and thermal power generation that it aims to apply both in Japan and overseas.  Located along the industrial coast of the port city of Yokohama, the Solar Techno Park aims to achieve a combined output capacity of 40 to 60 kilowatts this spring. The facility's most notable apparatus is the HyperHelios (seen here), a photovoltaic system consisting of rows of heliostats with mirrors that follow the sun and a receiving tower. Two types of solar thermal power systems are also being developed in the park.

China poisoned 600+ Child Laborers

China lead pollution poisons 160 children:

 

Lead emission from factories and the natural environment in China's manufacturing heart of Guangdong has poisoned 160 children, Xinhua said on Sunday in the country's latest case of unfettered industrial toxins.  Children from Dongtang town in Renhua country were found to have "elevated" levels of lead in their blood after inhaling lead-contaminated air and eating food tainted with lead, Xinhua said.  The natural level of lead in Dongtang is also higher than usual as the town sits on a lead-zinc ore belt which raises the lead content in the soil, Xinhua said.  The report did not name the factories responsible for the lead emissions and was based on preliminary investigations that tested the blood samples of 531 residents last month.  Lead poisoning is prevalent in China and has sparked protests in the past among angry parents of children hurt by heavy metal pollution. Lead is especially damaging to children as it can impede learning and affect behaviours.  To counter widespread public anger, Beijing has promised to crack down on lead pollution. An industry body said last May China could shut three quarters of lead-acid battery plants in the next two or three years to cut local lead demand.  China is the world's largest consumer of refined lead, with 70 percent used for making batteries.  Lead poisoning builds up through regular exposure to small amounts of lead and damages the nervous and reproductive systems, kidneys, as well as causing high blood pressure and anemia.  In 2009, protesters broke into one smelting plant they blamed for the lead poisoning of more than 600 children, smashing trucks and tearing down fences before the police stopped them.

N.S.A. copies all American Emails

   Former NSA Mathematician Says He Believes the Agency Stores Copies of All Emails Transmitted in America:








While most of the N.S.A. was reeling on September 11th, inside SARC the horror unfolded “almost like an ‘I-told-you-so’ moment,” according to J. Kirk Wiebe, an intelligence analyst who worked there. “We knew we weren’t keeping up.” SARC was led by a crypto-mathematician named Bill Binney, whom Wiebe describes as “one of the best analysts in history.” Binney and a team of some twenty others believed that they had pinpointed the N.S.A.’s biggest problem—data overload—and then solved it. But the agency’s management hadn’t agreed.  Binney, who is six feet three, is a bespectacled sixty-seven-year-old man with wisps of dark hair; he has the quiet, tense air of a preoccupied intellectual. Now retired and suffering gravely from diabetes, which has already claimed his left leg, he agreed recently to speak publicly for the first time about the Drake case. When we met, at a restaurant near N.S.A. headquarters, he leaned crutches against an extra chair. “This is too serious not to talk about,” he said.  Binney expressed terrible remorse over the way some of his algorithms were used after 9/11. ThinThread, the “little program” that he invented to track enemies outside the U.S., “got twisted,” and was used for both foreign and domestic spying: “I should apologize to the American people. It’s violated everyone’s rights. It can be used to eavesdrop on the whole world.” According to Binney, Drake took his side against the N.S.A.’s management and, as a result, became a political target within the agency.  Binney, for his part, believes that the agency now stores copies of all e-mails transmitted in America, in case the government wants to retrieve the details later. In the past few years, the N.S.A. has built enormous electronic-storage facilities in Texas and Utah. Binney says that an N.S.A. E-mail database can be searched with “dictionary selection,” in the manner of Google. After 9/11, he says, “General Hayden reassured everyone that the N.S.A. didn’t put out dragnets, and that was true. It had no need—it was getting every fish in the sea.”  Binney considers himself a conservative, and, as an opponent of big government, he worries that the N.S.A.’s data-mining program is so extensive that it could help “create an Orwellian state.” Whereas wiretap surveillance requires trained human operators, data mining is automated, meaning that the entire country can be watched. Conceivably, U.S. officials could “monitor the Tea Party, or reporters, whatever group or organization you want to target,” he says. “It’s exactly what the Founding Fathers never wanted.”

Former NSA Genius Apologizes for His Super Spying Software (Gizmodo):

Long before 9/11, brilliant NSA crypto-mathematician Bill Binney had developed an algorithm to make sense of the unbelievably massive amounts of data American spies were pulling in—he called it ThinThread. And then it went very, very wrong.

Thin Thread, the New Yorker reports, proved to be too good: designed to track foreign enemies via their electronic footprints, Binney was horrified to find that the powerful software processed mammoth amounts of American communications as well. Without a warrant—illegally. Binney implemented an encryption scheme that blurred out American chatter unless it was flagged by a judge, but his system was discarded by the NSA for being too invasive.

[caption id="attachment_2196" align="aligncenter" width="1024" caption="NSA building"]

F.B.I. manufactors Terrorists to Hunt

U.S. Government Now Creating Terrorists So It Can Arrest Them:

Mohamed Osman Mohamud, a 19-year-old U.S. citizen, was arrested this weekend for plotting to detonate a bombat a downtown Portland, Oregon tree-lighting celebration. So that’s good, right? Americans appreciate not getting blown up. But the thing is, Mohamud was never a member of a terrorist group. The FBI provided him a fake bomb and worked with him in the planning of the attack. But that’s not unusual these days, because the government no longer just tries to find and arrest actual terrorists; it also tries to create terrorists it can then arrest. In fact, informants now like to stand in the parking lots of American mosques, offering hundreds of thousands of dollars and fancy cars to anyone who will sign up for jihad. It’s a brave new world for thoughtcrime.  Mohamud was a student at Oregon State, and as far as we can tell from this AP story, was not promised to get rich quickly by becoming a terrorist. He, at least, did have an actual interest in becoming one, because the FBI saw his e-mails to a friend in Pakistan, asking if he knew Osama bin Laden’s AIM handle or whatever. When Mohamud had no luck getting this contact info (WHAT? HIS FRIEND WAS IN PAKISTAN! HE MUST HAVE KNOWN TERRORISTS!), the government swooped in and told him they were hip terrorist guys with a bomb and a terrorist letterman’s-jacket with his name stitched on it.  Oh, why was the FBI reading this Mohamud guy’s e-mails in the first place? It’s never explained in this AP story. But c’mon, the kid’s name is Mohamud. He shouldn’t have let his parents name him that if he didn’t want to be a terrorist. So obviously the answer to this problem was not continued surveillance but rather to entice this kid into dropping out of college to become the ULTIMATE TERRORIST.  It was also very difficult to decipher that this kid is an American citizen, because the AP story was so busy telling us he is a “Somali-born teenager” and PRECIOUS SMALL WHITE CHILDREN were at this Portland Christmas event (at which they were never in danger of exploding).  But here’s an even more fun account in Slate about “four African-American ex-cons from Newburgh, N.Y.” who were enticed into saying they would blow up two synagogues:

Hussain bought meals for the group of four men he assembled because none of them had jobs or money. The owner of a Newburgh restaurant where they occasionally ate considered him “the boss,” because he would pick up the tab. Among his other inducements were the offer of $250,000 and a BMW to the most volubly anti-Semitic plotter, the man the government says was the ringleader, James Cromitie. To drive that car, Cromitie would have needed a driver’s license—which he didn’t have. Another supposed plotter, a Haitian, was a paranoid schizophrenic (according to his imam), which was the reason his deportation had been deferred (according to The Nation’s TomDispatch.com), and who kept bottles of urine in his squalid apartment (according to the New York Times). The last two, both surnamed Williams, have histories of drug busts and minimum-wage jobs in Newburgh. At trial the government asserted that the plot was driven by anti-American hatred. But in papers filed in court by defense lawyers before the trial began, Cromitie is quoted in government transcripts explaining to Hussain that the men “will do it for the money. … They’re not even thinking about the cause.”

One of these guys tried to back out, “saying he didn’t want to hurt any women or children,” but the informant pressured him into staying with the group.  This is just perverse. Perhaps the government will one day figure out how to wind down bureaucracies and bureaucratic divisions once they’re proved no longer necessary. But until then, the FBI will create terrorists for itself to bust because it doesn’t have enough actual, group-aligned terrorists to hunt. And, perhaps, a fake bomb for you to assemble will suddenly arrive on your doorstep one day after you criticize the government or American society. But anti-terrorism efforts have to adjust to the actual threat eventually, right? It’s not like archaic bureaucracies like the Tennessee Valley Authority are still around.

Mohamud was known at the Salman Al-Farisi Center in Corvallis, said Yosof Wanly, imam at the mosque. He said Mohamud was “an average university boy,” drinking the occasional beer with friends in fraternities.

“He had some fraternity friends,” Wanly said. “He would attend athletic (events), basketball games, whatever they are.”

By the way, you know who coaches that basketball team? Known terrorist Barack Obama’s brother-in-law. DUN DUN DUN

Australian Government makes excuse to kill Camels

Australian Company Will Kill Camels for Cash, Carbon Credits:

As you've likely heard, Australia is en route to pass legislation ensuring that its largest polluters pay for their carbon emissions. The new law will allow companies to reduce at least part of their emissions by buying carbon credits that sponsor projects proven to reduce greenhouse gas generation. And enterprising companies are already stepping up to the plate with ideas on how to turn a profit reducing emissions -- like, for instance, Northwest Carbon. The company has already submitted a proposal detailing its plans to offer carbon credits for slaughtering millions of methane-emitting feral camels.  Northwest Carbon thinks that farmers and hunters who help rid the nation of its feral camel population should be compensated with carbon credits. Australia does indeed have a major feral camel problem -- the invasive species are crowding out native ones, trampling vegetation, and rapidly reproducing. But proposing that killing them be redeemable for carbon credits is certain to be controversial.

Private company Northwest Carbon has put forward a proposal that could result in farmers and others paid for culling camels on their land and selling offsets under the federal government's carbon farming initiative (CFI) ... Northwest has developed a methodology for determining the extent of the reduction."Camels like cattle do in fact produce methane as part of their digestive processes," [Department official Shayleen Thompson] told a Senate estimates hearing on Monday. "The idea is that one can take action to reduce camel populations off a set baseline and hence create carbon credits as a result of that activity which does benefit the atmosphere."

When a similar proposal was floated months ago, Mat remarked that the prospect was pretty asinine. And indeed, as a carbon reduction scheme, it seems a shoddy, short-term-only operation. Mat points out that a more powerful scheme to reduce methane emissions would be to address livestock production, not kill a finite population of wild camels.  The whole proposal could be construed as a company trying to make an easy buck off of a project that needs to be addressed anyways. Then again, it could be argued that the project is killing two birds with one stone: Instead of using government funds to police an out-of-control camel population, it's employing (or rewarding) hunters and farmers to do so themselves. And yes, it's reducing greenhouse gas emissions, too.  It's also raising the profile of the carbon offsets law, and promoting its flexibility. By displaying one of the many ways to reduce carbon emissions, it could engage a segment of the Australian public that might not have been on board, and inspire further creative thinking on carbon reduction projects. It could also lead folks to believe the whole endeavor is kind of absurd. You get the point: it's a totally grey area, and it reveals the mess of ambiguity that surrounds carbon offset projects and policies.

Federal Reserve Steals 16 Trillion in Secret Loans

 The Federal Reserve Made $16 Trillion In Secret Loans To Their Bankster Friends And The Media Is Ignoring The Eye-Popping Corruption That Has Been Uncovered:

A one-time limited GAO audit of the Federal Reserve that was mandated by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act has uncovered some eye-popping corruption at the Fed and the mainstream media is barely even covering it.  It turns out that the Federal Reserve made $16.1 trillion in secret loans to their bankster friends during the financial crisis.  You can read a copy of the GAO investigation for yourself right here.  These loans only went to the "too big to fail" banks and to foreign financial institutions.  Not a penny of these loans went to small banks or to ordinary Americans.  Not only did the banksters get trillions in nearly interest-free loans, but the Fed actually paid them over 600 million dollars to help run the emergency lending program.  The GAO investigation revealed some absolutely stunning conflicts of interest, and yet the mainstream media does not even seem interested.  Solid evidence of the looting of America has been put right in front of us, and yet hardly anyone wants to talk about it.  Many Americans have a hard time grasping just how large 16.1 trillion dollars is.  It is an amount of money that is almost inconceivable.  It is more than the GDP of the United States for an entire year.  It is more than the U.S. government has spent over the last four years combined.  The Federal Reserve was just creating gigantic piles of cash out of thin air and throwing them around with wild abandon.  One of the only members of Congress that has wanted to talk about the GAO audit has been U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders.  The following is a statement about this audit that was taken from his official website....

"As a result of this audit, we now know that the Federal Reserve provided more than $16 trillion in total financial assistance to some of the largest financial institutions and corporations in the United States and throughout the world"

So precisely who got this money?  Well, a recent article on Raw Story named some of the big Wall Street banks that got some of this money....

Out of all borrowers, Citigroup received the most financial assistance from the Fed, at $2.5 trillion. Morgan Stanley came in second with $2.04 trillion, followed by Merill Lynch at $1.9 trillion and Bank of America at $1.3 trillion.

But it just wasn't U.S. banksters that were showered with nearly interest-free loans.  It turns out that approximately $3.08 trillion went to foreign financial institutions all over Europe and Asia.  So who in the world gave the Federal Reserve permission to bail out financial institutions all over the world?  Nobody did.  But under our current system the Federal Reserve doesn't have to get permission.  They literally get to do whatever they want.  On his website, Senator Sanders expressed his outrage over these foreign loans....

"No agency of the United States government should be allowed to bailout a foreign bank or corporation without the direct approval of Congress and the president"

So should we expect Congress to approve legislation that would reduce the power of the Fed?  Of course not.  We all know that is not going to happen.  The Federal Reserve is run like a dictatorship.  They get to do what they want and nobody can stop them.  Not only did the Fed dish out over $16 trillion in secret loans to their friends, but they also paid their bankster friends over 600 million dollars to help them do it.  According to the GAO, the Federal Reserve paid $659.4 million to the very financial institutions which caused the financial crisis to help the Fed manage all of these emergency loans.  Can anyone say "conflict of interest"?  Not only were the banksters raking in trillions in secret loans, they were also paid to help run the lending process.  Wow.  So why isn't the mainstream media talking about this?  That is a very good question.  But wait, there is more.  It turns out that many Fed officials had very large investments in the financial institutions that were receiving these secret loans.  So what was done about all of the conflict of interest issues that arose?  According to Senator Sanders, "the Fed provided conflict of interest waivers to employees and private contractors so they could keep investments in the same financial institutions and corporations that were given emergency loans."  Oh, everyone was given waivers.  Apparently corruption is okay if we just get everyone to sign a bunch of forms.  The following is one example of a conflict of interest that occurred during this lending program that Senator Sanders noted on his website....

For example, the CEO of JP Morgan Chase served on the New York Fed's board of directors at the same time that his bank received more than $390 billion in financial assistance from the Fed.  Moreover, JP Morgan Chase served as one of the clearing banks for the Fed's emergency lending programs.

This is a classic case of the foxes watching the hen house.  It was the banksters that caused the financial crisis.  They were the only ones that the Federal Reserve helped.  In fact, the Federal Reserve ended up having the banksters basically run the entire emergency lending program as Senator Sanders noted on his site....

The Fed outsourced virtually all of the operations of their emergency lending programs to private contractors like JP Morgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, and Wells Fargo.  The same firms also received trillions of dollars in Fed loans at near-zero interest rates.

If you were not outraged by that, then you need to read it again.  What the banksters have been getting away with is absolutely mind blowing.  So will changes be made to make sure that something like this never happens again in the future?  Well, the GAO has recommended that significant changes should be made.  But as mentioned above, the only one that gets to tell the Federal Reserve what to do is the Federal Reserve.  According to the Washington Post, the Federal Reserve is promising to "strongly consider" the recommendations of the GAO....

The Fed’s general counsel, Scott Alvarez, said in a letter responding to the GAO’s audit that officials will “strongly consider” the recommendations.

Most Americans do not realize that the Federal Reserve is not actually part of the federal government.  It is a privately-owned central bank that is not accountable to anyone.  But most Americans still believe that the Fed is a government agency.  The truth is that the Federal Reserve is about as "federal" as Federal Express is.  In another article about the Federal Reserve, I noted that the Federal Reserve has even admitted that it is not an agency of the federal government in court....

In defending itself against a Bloomberg request for information under the Freedom of Information Act, the Federal Reserve objected by declaring that it was "not an agency" of the U.S. government and therefore it was not subject to the Freedom of Information Act.

Basically, an unaccountable private monopoly creates our money, sets our interest rates, regulates our banking system and makes secret loans to whoever they want.  The Federal Reserve has more power over our economy than any other institution and nobody can overrule any decisions that they make.  Does that sound very "American" to you?"  Since the Federal Reserve was created in 1913, it has been systematically destroying the wealth of America through constant and never ending inflation.  The U.S. dollar loses more value every single year.  According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, what you could buy for $1.00 in 1965 will cost you $7.17 today.  Sadly, the devaluation of our money is actually accelerating.  That is one reason why we are seeing precious metals soar right now.  Not only that, but the Federal Reserve was also designed to be a perpetual government debt creation machine.  Do you know how money is created in this country?  Normally, more money is only created when more debt is created.  What this sets up is a never end spiral where the amount of money and the amount of debt are continually increasing.  Most Americans believe that we could solve the government debt problem if we could just control spending.  But that is not the case.  The Federal Reserve system was designed to get the U.S. government into constantly increasing amounts of debt and this is exactly what has happened....



The U.S. government will never fix the national debt problem as long as it participates in the Federal Reserve system.  Founding fathers such as Thomas Jefferson tried to warn us about the danger of central banking.  Jefferson strongly believed that when the federal government borrows money in one generation that must be paid back by future generations it is equivalent to theft....

And I sincerely believe, with you, that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies; and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.

Not only that, Thomas Jefferson actually said that if he could add just one more amendment to the U.S. Constitution it would be a complete ban on all government debt....

I wish it were possible to obtain a single amendment to our Constitution. I would be willing to depend on that alone for the reduction of the administration of our government to the genuine principles of its Constitution; I mean an additional article, taking from the federal government the power of borrowing.

Of course we did not listen to Thomas Jefferson, did we?  Now we have gotten ourselves into one fine mess.  If the federal government shut down the Federal Reserve system, started issuing debt-free money and established a new system based on sound financial principles we might have a chance of turning this thing around.  But if we continue on the path that we are currently on, we are going to experience a financial disaster of unprecedented magnitude.  We have piled up the biggest mountain of debt in the history of the world, and a day of reckoning is approaching.  Our founding fathers tried to warn us about this, but we thought that we were so much smarter than them.  Now we get to suffer the consequences of our foolishness.