Land Of The Flea

Hospital technician pleads guilty to leaving dirty needles after feeding his painkiller addiction

"A former hospital technician in New Hampshire who caused patients as old as 80 to become infected with hepatitis pleaded guilty to leaving dirty syringes for hospital use after he injected himself with stolen painkiller. The technician, David Kwiatkowski, had previously admitted to knowing that he was infected with hepatitis C. He pleaded guilty to 14 criminal counts related to seven cases in which he caused infections in patients ranging in age from about 40 to more than 80. He was working at Exeter Hospital in New Hampshire in early 2012 when he began stealing syringes of the powerful pain medication Fentanyl." Continue reading →

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School boards searching for Obamacare loopholes to avoid paying some benefits

"Hit by years of budget cuts, some U.S. public school boards are looking to avoid providing health benefits to substitute teachers and supporting staff under President Barack Obama’s reform law, education officials say. According to the law, employers will have to offer health coverage to all full-time employees, defined as those who work an average of 30 or more hours per week each month, or else pay a fine starting in 2015. The need to find creative solutions, or risk cutting back staff hours further, will increase as they finalize their budgets, they say." Continue reading →

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How Your Boss’ Prying Eyes Could Land You a Visit from the Feds

"By some estimates, more than two-thirds of company-provided computers in the U.S. are monitored by employers. If you work for such a firm, every email you send, every cute and crazy cat video you watch on YouTube, and every Google search you make is tracked, catalogued, and archived somewhere in the system. Sometimes, that can lead to unwanted consequences, as it did for New Yorkers Michelle Catalano and her husband a couple weeks ago: a visit from the Suffolk County, New York, 'Joint Terrorism Task Force.'" Continue reading →

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Topless activist Phoenix Feeley goes on hunger strike in New Jersey jail

"Phoenix Feeley, a New York resident, is serving the sentence in the Monmouth County Correctional Institution for refusing to pay $816 in fines in connection with her 2008 arrest at a beach in Spring Lake where she was sunbathing topless in violation of a town ordinance in an act of civil disobedience. Feeley is a member of GoTopless, an organization that is campaigning for the right of women to go topless in public on the basis of gender equality. New Jersey is one of about a dozen states in the country with ambiguous topless laws. Three states – Indiana, Utah and Tennessee – have outright bans on women going shirtless in public." Continue reading →

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The NSA Is Hiring! And Following A Pittsburgh Car Dealership On Its Twitter Account?

"The NSA's hiring arm has a Twitter account, NSACareers. This account tweets new job listings and pro-NSA news into the void, gathering more derision than potential hires in its pursuit of people skilled in the art of data wrangling but completely devoid of a conscience or soul. Could this be you? Are you the sort of 'informaticist' who can swiftly extract needles from haystacks to help prevent the next terrorist attack? Failing that, can you swiftly extract victory from the jaws of defeat and say, 'Tough luck on the recent bombing, but we'll get the next one, I promise?' If so, your country needs your informaticizing skills NOW." Continue reading →

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California Court Overturns ‘Overly Lenient’ LAPD Vehicle Impound Policy

"Superior Court Judge Terry Green sided with groups that challenged the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) for inventing a confiscation procedure that differed from procedures laid down by California state lawmakers. Proponents of car confiscation contend that the LAPD guidelines are an end-run around a law clearly ordering thirty-day impoundment of vehicles from drivers with expired or non-existent licenses. Confiscation is big business for the city. Towing and storage can run $1100 per vehicle, and with hundreds of thousands seized every year, the revenue generated reaches into the tens of millions." Continue reading →

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Reserve Bank of India won’t regulate virtual currency Bitcoin, yet

"India's central bank is 'watching' Bitcoin, the virtual currency that is gaining popularity among Net users, but has no intention of regulating it right now. The Reserve Bank of India, which has its hands full trying to arrest the slump in the value of the rupee, will first seek to understand Bitcoins before seeking to bring it under its purview. 'As of now we are watching and learning about the developments in Bitcoins but are not regulating it,' an RBI spokeswoman wrote in an e-mailed response. In a note published in June, the central bank acknowledged that virtual currencies 'pose challenges in the form of regulatory, legal and operational risks.'" Continue reading →

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Bitcoin Comes Under Full Scale Attack by Regulators

"Cryptocurrencies are threatening because no central entity can fully control them and they also represent a nearly free and anonymous payment application. It's an algorithm that has the potential to make central banks, commercial banks, private banks, and the tax collectors obsolete. In other words, cryptocoins may be epoch changing for society. In the same way the Internet killed publishing or how VoIP killed long distance telephone carriers, cryptocoins may in fact kill debt-based money and brick-and-mortar banking. The banking cartel along with the government are scrambling to protect their territory and regulate Bitcoin." Continue reading →

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NPR: Lawmakers, Banking Regulators Take On Bitcoin

"CORNISH: How significant is New York's move to launch an investigation, to issue these subpoenas? BRITO: So it's interesting, people hear the word subpoena and they think something bad, right? But all the word subpoena means is that it is a request for information, right? And you're compelled to, you know, produce, you know, you're asked questions and you have to answer them. And I think that's very good. [..] So when I see New York issuing these subpoenas, being very transparent about the fact that they're going to be looking at this and asking for input, you know, I think that's very good." Continue reading →

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U.S. Sentencing Commission expected to recommend lower sentences for drug dealing

"Prison terms for all federal drug dealing offences could be cut under a sweeping sentencing review expected to be announced on Thursday that may go much further than the tentative steps toward ending America’s 'war on drugs', begun this week by attorney general Eric Holder. The US Sentencing Commission, the independent government agency responsible for setting guidelines for judges, will meet in Washington to consider amending the 'drug quantity table' – the grid that determines prison lengths for dozens of different categories of offence. The impetus for the new push to cut sentences appears to have been driven primarily by a need to cut soaring government costs." Continue reading →

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