Monthly Archives: August 2013

Putin Laughs At Saudi Offer To Betray Syria In Exchange For “Huge” Arms Deal

"One of the more surprising news to hit the tape yesterday was that Saudi Arabia had quietly approached Putin with a proposal for a huge arms deal and a pledge to boost Russian influence in the Arab world if only Putin would abandon Syria's Assad. It will hardly come as a surprise to anyone that in the aftermath of yesterday's dilettante mistake by Obama which alienated Putin from the western world (and its subservient states such as Saudi Arabia of course), has just said no. It will certainly come as no surprise because the biggest loser from Russia abandoning Syria would be Russia's most important company - Gazprom." Continue reading →

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‘Slipping Back Into Cold War Thinking’

"Russia's loss is Sweden's gain: On Wednesday, the White House revealed that US President Obama will visit Stockholm on September 4-5, on his way to the G-20 summit in St. Petersburg. 'Sweden is a close friend and partner to the United States,' said the press secretary in a statement. And right now, Russia isn't. Obama was originally planning to be in Moscow on these dates for talks with President Vladimir Putin -- but the Russian leader has been given the brush-off. It seems the Kremlin's decision to grant asylum to fugitive US spy agency contractor Edward Snowden was the final straw." Continue reading →

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What It’s Like to Get a National-Security Letter

"I spoke with Brewster Kahle, the founder of the nonprofit Internet Archive, perhaps the greatest of our digital libraries, and of the Wayback Machine, which allows you to browse an archive of the Web that reaches back to 1996. He is one of very few people in the United States who can talk about receiving a national-security letter. Hundreds of thousands of national-security letters have been sent. But only the plaintiffs in the three successful challenges so far—Kahle; Nicholas Merrill, of Calyx Internet Access; and the Connecticut librarians George Christian, Barbara Bailey, Peter Chase, and Janet Nocek—are known to have had them rescinded." Continue reading →

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New York fails Common Core tests; more states to follow

"The political fight over the Common Core academic standards rolling out in schools nationwide this fall is sure to intensify after New York reported Wednesday that students across the state failed miserably on new reading and math tests meant to reflect the more rigorous standards. Fewer than a third of students in public schools passed the new tests, officials reported. And, in a twist that could roil education policy, some highly touted charter schools flopped particularly badly. Critics fumed that the state was setting kids up to fail — and failing to acknowledge that crimped budgets, crowded classrooms and high student poverty rates have all played a role." Continue reading →

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The impulse to ban

"You don’t have to be a libertarian, or otherwise opposed to large government, to desire proper analysis of a problem and its potential solutions before rushing into a ban. Yet the impulse in the general population is to ban, whether they are on the left or the right. Those of us involved in drug policy reform have seen so clearly first-hand the unmitigated disasters that can come from the rush to ban, and so are less susceptible, perhaps, to that impulse. But we need to help others see that banning is not equal to stopping the problem." Continue reading →

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Weight Watchers trying to cash in on Obamacare healthy workers initiative

"Called Health Solutions, the division partners with corporations to create incentive programs that range from partially subsidizing Weight Watchers program fees for employees to giving employees a discount on health insurance if they attend a certain amount of meetings. Employees can also attend Weight Watchers meetings in their office, or use online tools customizable to the company. The Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, will raise the incentive level caps to 30 percent to allow employers to reward healthy employees with lower insurance premiums, or penalize unhealthy workers with higher premiums." Continue reading →

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How to Use Public Health to Control Everything

"The early focus on a holistic public led to the movement of 'racial hygiene' which appeared in 19th century Germany. A historian of public health, Dorothy Porter, explains that the movement considered 'the health, not only of individuals, but of the race as a whole.' The trend was also called 'social hygiene,' and spread to other countries. It reached its zenith under the Nazis. In his fascinating book, The Nazi War on Cancer, Robert Proctor mentions some Nazi slogans: 'You have the duty to be healthy,' 'Food is not a private matter,' 'Your body belongs to the nation.'" Continue reading →

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Targeted booze strikes: Aerial drone drops beer at South Africa music festival

"Revellers at a South African outdoor rock festival no longer need to queue to slake their thirst — a flying robot will drop them beer by parachute. After clients place an order using a smartphone app, a drone zooms 15 metres (50 feet) above the heads of the festival-goers to make the delivery. Carel Hoffmann, director of the Oppikoppi festival held on a dusty farm in the country’s northern Limpopo province, said the app registers the position of users using the GPS satellite chips on their phones. 'The delivery guys have a calibrated delivery drone. They send it to the GPS position and drops it with a parachute,' he explained." Continue reading →

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The Technological Evolution of Nonlethal Weaponry

"Over time, the one constant has been to invent a technology that conferred an advantage on the user in battle—or else served as protection against what the other guy had. And the reason for wielding any given weapon has always been to maim or, preferably, kill one's adversary. Before one got one's own self killed, of course. The concept of a weapon that is designed merely to temporarily incapacitate, with little or no lasting injury, is relatively new. In a way, the development of nonlethal weaponry (NLW) can be seen as an inevitable byproduct of the rise of democracy in the world." Continue reading →

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Third Maryland Jurisdiction Forced To Refund Illegal Photo Tickets

"These camera housings are now empty because the State Highway Administration noticed that the automated ticketing machine located on Berry Road had been posted 275 feet before the school zone for Daniel of Saint Thomas Jenifer Elementary School begins. The state agency notified the sheriff who agreed to cancel and around 4000 tickets, refunding any fines that have been paid because ticketing site did not meet legal standards. The photo ticketing setback in Charles County will take a serious chunk out of the $2,013,000 revenue the county expected to generate by allowing the contractor to issue 35,000 tickets." Continue reading →

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