URBANA, Md. (AP) - The Justice Department says it foiled a plot by a fired Fannie Mae contract worker in Maryland to destroy all the data on the mortgage giant's 4,000 computer servers nationwide.
The U.S. Attorney's Office says 35-year-old Rajendrasinh Makwana, of Glen Allen, Va., is scheduled for arraignment Friday in U.S. District Court in Baltimore on one count of computer intrusion. U.S. Attorney Rod Rosenstein says Makwana was fired Oct. 24.
Rosenstein says that on that day, Makwana programmed a computer with a malicious code that was set to spread throughout the Fannie Mae network and destroy all data this Saturday.
Makwana's federal public defender did not immediately return a call seeking comment.
#4
Compare wid WORLD AFFAIRS BORAD [WAB] > A NEW ORDER ORDER OF THE LEFT + US SENATOR ASKS MICROSOFT TO AXE FOREIGN WORKERS FIRST + US ECONOMY SHRANK BY 3.8% IN LAST QUARTER [Real = 5.0%]???
The post office could be going the way of the pony express.
A day after Postmaster General John Potter threatened to cut mail delivery from six to five days a week, postal experts, direct marketing executives and politicians alike said the outlook for the quasi-governmental U.S. Postal Service is bleak.
"It certainly represents a divergence of mail service as we know it," Postal Regulatory Commission Chairman Dan Blair told FOXNews.com of the potential move to five-day service as a cost-cutting measure. "But we don't really rely on mail the same way we do today as we did five, 10 years ago. Our expectations of postal service are different from a generation ago."
Illinois Rep. Danny Davis, chairman of the Federal Workforce, Postal Service and the District of Columbia subcommittee, said it's a matter of unavoidable truths.
"We've seen this coming for several years now, quite frankly," Davis told FOXNews.com. "The volume simply is not there; e-commerce has taken its toll. We used to write letters to grandma and stuff like that, now we just don't do that anymore. You can't deliver what's not there."
Citing inflating costs, a $6 billion budget deficit and the largest annual decrease in mail volume ever, Blair said the Postal Service has entered uncharted territory, even worse than in the 1990s, when the USPS considered eliminating window services.
"This is different because we've seen a decline in volume across all classes in percentages not seen since the Great Depression," Blair said. "You couple that with the decline in first-class mail as well ... the mail mix isn't as profitable for them as it once was."
Cutting a day of service would have to be approved by Congress and postal officials, but it could save roughly $1.9 billion a year, Blair said.
Still, with postal rates expected to rise in mid-May, it'll be a hard sell to the American public.
"If it was a normal business, their customers would turn to someone else," Blair said.
During testimony before a Senate subcommittee on Wednesday, Blair said eliminating a day of mail service may expedite the decline of mail volume and suggested that the closure of some post offices should be considered.
"That's something I would recommend," Blair told FOXNews.com. "[But] this raises serious public policy implications. In rural America, the post office is the face of the American government. Closing post offices brings out very parochial concerns. It's an area where they could save money, but it's an area that will receive a lot of political attention."
Bob Cohen, a former Postal Regulatory Commission official, was even more pessimistic about the agency's future. "The model may be in jeopardy now," Cohen told FOXNews.com. "They've got a problem. As the role of the postal service becomes less and less important as a communications medium, I guess it's going to have to shrink. It's very foggy right now what the future is."
But Jerry Cerasale, senior vice president of government affairs at Direct Marketing Association, said eliminating a mail day -- possibly Tuesday, the slowest mail day of the week, or Saturday -- could seriously affect direct-mail firms, periodicals and other firms that utilize mail. "This is not the time for the postal service to raise rates and cut service," Cerasale told FOXNews.com. "It puts us in a very difficult place."
Perhaps more troubling than the specter of losing a day to reach customers is an estimated volume drop of 14 billion pieces of mail for fiscal year 2009, Cerasale said. "That for us is big news," he said. "Many firms who use mail don't come back because they find other ways to reach their potential customers."
#1
Postman Fred Cooper, the fellow in the picture. The one with the sharp uniform and hat, military style haircut and friendly smile who looks like he could have been war veteran. He doesn't look a thing like my mailperson. Wonder if that has anything to do with it? Who knows, just say'n.
#3
Back in the old days, before there was the Murtha/Byrd/etc patronage by earmark, the postal service was the patronage job operated by your local congresscritter. Making it 'professional' meant the crooks congresscritters had to find new and even more expensive venues of patronage. Today we don't see a lot of personal return on earmarks where as you at least saw real work being done with the performance of your servicing post office back then. At least in the old days, when someone screwed up the mail you could directly hold your congresscritter personally responsible. Call it quality control.
#5
Everyone needs to chip in & help. Send every "Business Reply Mail" envelope you receive, back to the sender. Judging from the number of envelopes I get in my junk mail, that alone would erase the postal service deficit.
#6
If they have to cut a day, I vote for Tuesday. Going without mail on Sunday is ok, but two consecutive days without service would put a crimp in my eBay business. My customers expect to get their stuff ASAP! And frankly, I don't see UPS or FedEx as the solution.
#8
I remember when Australia elected a socialist government in 1972, they cut mail deliveries from 11 weekly to 5, and quadrupled the basic stamp price.
#10
Darth, I just sent a payment request for the Vader figure. I'm out of pancake makers, and I don't deal in milkshakes. Lemme know if there are any Golden Age comics or pulps you're looking for....
#11
If UPS or FedEx were required to service every address (old or new) every day they too would have serious problems. As it is, there are packages to deliver as long as Scooter is in business. Note: USPS freight seems to be competitive and there are a lot more locations if you are not a business.
There is a large portion of the population that NEED the service, at a minimum for bills (receive and pay) if not correspondence. Not all live their lives tied to a computer. Postal Service, like military, fire or police, is a basic service of government. When the USPS was supposedly made into a business I had serious questions as they were still run by Congress (we all know how well that works). They are legally REQUIRED to provide these services. And there ain't no free lunch.
#12
The USPS union is like the UAW. It imposes work rules, wages and benefits (relative to UPS and FedEx) that make the USPS non-competitive in packages, service- and price-wise. If UPS and FedEx were allowed to deliver First Class Mail, the USPS would be much deeper in the red.
This is the weird part - FedEx and UPS people work harder and get paid less than USPS employees, but you've never heard of anyone "going FedEx" or "going UPS", have you? It's always been "going postal".
#17
F'em. Raise the stamp price to $5.00 and let's sink the sunnuvabich right now.
Or we can be realistic and not expect delivery to every single home. A mass mailbox location on intersections would help the USPS and still not reqiure much of the user.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
01/30/2009 22:40 Comments ||
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#18
a $6 billion budget deficit
and Cutting a day of service would have to be approved by Congress and postal officials, but it could save roughly $1.9 billion a year, Blair said.
I could live w/ 3 days mail service. Problem solved.
Posted by: ed ||
01/30/2009 23:01 Comments ||
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H/T Slashdot by way of Instapundit
Ok, maybe this is getting a little too close to bringing Terminator-like robots to life. For starters, eco-friendly engine builder Cyclone Power this week inked a contract from Robotic Technologies, Inc. (RTI) to develop what it calls a beta biomass engine system that will be the heart of RTI's Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot (EATR).
The purpose of EATR is to develop and demonstrate an autonomous robotic platform able to perform long-range, long-endurance missions without the need for manual or conventional re-fueling - in other words it needs to "eat."
According to researchers, the EATR system gets its energy by foraging, or what the firms describe as "engaging in biologically-inspired, organism-like, energy-harvesting behavior which is the equivalent of eating. It can find, ingest, and extract energy from biomass in the environment as well as use conventional and alternative fuels (such as gasoline, heavy fuel, kerosene, diesel, propane, coal, cooking oil, and solar) when suitable."
I can see it now: One day you walk out to start you car only to find this robot sucking your tank dry. "Sorry, I was hungry," it says." Allowances will definitely be made if the robot looks anything like this.
Posted by: Ricky bin Ricardo (Abu Babaloo) ||
01/30/2009 00:56 ||
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I for one welcome our new robot overlords.
Posted by: Mike ||
01/30/2009 11:11 Comments ||
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#2
"It can find, ingest, and extract energy from biomass in the environment"
It may also find that 'fresh meat' actually works better as a fuel, dispelling the 'Vegetarian Meme'.
Keep an eye on your cats and kids.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
01/30/2009 11:43 Comments ||
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#3
iirc, there was not too long ago another article about a darpa program to "Find and track an un-cooperative human target".
Why do I feel somewhat disturbed about this news?
Posted by: N guard ||
01/30/2009 14:08 Comments ||
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#4
Okay, I'll bite, ISN'T THIS HOW C3PO [Star Wars] GOT CAPTURED BY THE JAWAS???
When A.S., a young Egyptian, went to Israel some years ago, he thought the Jewish state would be a nearby dreamland where he would lead a better life than at home. "I was duped by the culture of peace promoted after the peace treaty with Israel. But I was in for unpleasant surprises in Israel where I am already married to an Israeli woman," the man is quoted as recounting in a book recently released in Cairo.
In her Egyptian Men and Israeli Women - The Forbidden Marriage, Hala Fouad, an Egyptian journalist, looks into the sensitive issue of Egyptian-Israeli marriages and their consequences for a country that fought four wars against the Jewish state before signing a peace treaty with it in 1979. "It's a matter of national security [for Egypt]," Fouad says in her Arabic book. "Israel used to be our sworn enemy and these men are marrying the foe's daughters and bringing into the world some children with confused culture and loyalties."
There are no confirmed statistics about how many Egyptians have left for Israel. While Egyptian members of parliament put the number at around 15,000, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry said only 600 Egyptians have settled there and none of them has joined the Israeli army.
In August 2007, the Israeli Statistics Centre, however, claimed that 10,000 Egyptian men are married to Israeli women and they account for about 13 per cent of the Muslim soldiers in the Israeli army.
According to the author, the offspring of such marriages would be a serious threat to Egypt's national security. Under the Egyptian law, children of an Egyptian father become Egyptian citizens. In Israel, children of an Israeli woman get the Israeli nationality. "Will these children one day join the Egyptian army? Will they hold senior posts in the Egyptian army and have the right to run in elections?" asked the author.
Many Muslim clerics in Egypt have recently passed fatwas (religious edicts) prohibiting Egyptian-Israeli marriages. While apprehensive about the impact of such marriages, the author stops short of calling Egyptians living in Israel traitors. According to her, poverty, joblessness, corruption, and social disparities at home are among the reasons for young Egyptians leaving their homeland for other countries.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/30/2009 00:00 ||
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"Israel used to be our sworn enemy and these men are marrying the foe's daughters and bringing into the world some children with confused culture and loyalties."
If they go with that "strong horse" thing, I think I know how that's gonna go...
Zimbabwe's government admitted defeat Thursday in a fight against dizzying inflation, allowing business to be done in U.S. dollars and bank notes of neighboring countries. Zimbabwe has the world's highest official inflation, with its currency now printed in the trillions of dollars. This month, the central bank introduced a new 100 trillion Zimbabwe dollar note.
The announcement by acting Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa acknowledged the black market practices that have been a reality for months because of Zimbabwe's economic meltdown. State control of foreign currency has allowed a ruling clique to enrich themselves by buying U.S. dollars at lower government rates and selling them at the much higher black market rate.
City workers, teachers, doctors and even bus drivers have gone on strike demanding to be paid in U.S. dollars or South African rand.
In a budget speech, Chinamasa said civil servants will continue to be paid in local currency but that their salaries will be brought in line with inflation. They also will be paid a monthly allowance in a foreign currency. Chinamasa said price controls also would be removed as of Sunday.
Shelves emptied of basic goods such as bread, sugar and milk after the government forced shop owners to sell stock at ridiculously low prices.
The U.N. food program said Thursday that 7 million Zimbabweans _ 80 percent of the population by some estimates _ need food aid.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/30/2009 00:00 ||
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Wildcat strikes spread to power stations across Britain today with more than 2,000 workers at 17 different sites walking out in protest against the use of foreign contractors. Around 700 staff walked out of the Grangemouth oil refinery in Scotland and 400 more staged an unofficial strike at a refinery in Teesside as workers lent their support to a three-day strike at Total's Lindsey oil refinery near Grimsby.
The wave of renegade strikes has also hit power stations including Longannet in Scotland, where 500 mechanical contractors have downed tools. At least 17 sites have seen strike action thus far and talks about further walkouts are ongoing at other installations, including the Sellafield nuclear plant.
Staff at the Lindsey refinery, in Immingham, North Lincolnshire, began their wildcat strike on Wednesday in protest at the arrival of 200 Italian and Portuguese staff who were awarded a large construction contract.
Continued on Page 49
#1
DRUDGEREPORT > UNIONS WARN: PARIS UNREST COULD SPREAD TO REST OF THE WORLD; + FREEREPUBLIC > UK:MUSLIM POPULATION IS RISING TEN TIMES FASTER THAN THE REST OF SOCIETY [Londonistan - UK Muslim population now stands at 2.4Milyuhn from 500,000 over 4 years].
More than one million French workers downed tools yesterday in the first general strike to hit a major industrialised nation since the start of the global financial crisis. Public and private sector workers took to the streets across France to protest against President Nicolas Sarkozy's handling of the economic crisis, saying too much had been done to bail out fat cats and banks and not enough to protect jobs and help workers make ends meet.
Air-traffic controllers, train drivers, teachers, nurses and tax inspectors were joined by private sector workers including bank clerks and staff from the firm that runs the Paris stock exchange. Some schools were shut, flights cancelled and the Palace of Versailles closed in a rare show of unity between French unions, although "Black Thursday" did not bring total transport paralysis.
"This is a broad anti-Sarkozy protest to say, crisis or no crisis, we don't like the way society is going," said a university lecturer on the Paris march. Banners carrying pictures of Sarkozy read: "The man who would be king" or "Sarkozy is killing France".
France has not experienced the kind of banking meltdown seen in Britain, Ireland or Spain. But it has seen a marked rise in unemployment - the country's greatest social concern and the root of unrest in recent years. France is entering its first recession in 16 years and jobless figures are rising at the fastest rate in more than a decade. Unemployment is predicted to top 10% next year and the young are being hit the hardest.
Sarkozy unveiled a 26bn (£23bn) stimulus package at the end of last year to encourage investment and protect major industries during the crisis. But union leaders said yesterday that he should follow Britain's example and offer help for consumers and people on low incomes.
"The president is taking workers for idiots," said Guy Rouget, a member of the powerful CGT union marching with Renault workers. "We keep seeing thousands given to banks but nothing to the workers. People have had enough, they can't keep going any longer on low pay with daily fear of losing their jobs."
The strike was a crucial test for Sarkozy's self-styled image as the only man brave enough to face down street protests and reform France. For the first 18 months of his presidency, he dismissed strikes and pushed through state pension reforms and the effective dismantling of the country's 35-hour week.
But amid a mood of social unease at the global downturn, the president has shown signs of faltering. Last month, fearful that Greek youth riots could spread to France, he shelved a contested high-school reform plan after teenager pupils staged street protests against it. "France is a difficult country to govern," he admitted to journalists earlier this month. This week he was careful to avoid commentary that would inflame tensions and irk unions.
"I see this as a general protest against Sarkozy's reforms. He is breaking the public service," said Habib Mouaci, a university student on the Paris march. Around 70% of the French public approved the strike but the education minister Xavier Darcos told French TV: "The government will not stop reforming a country that needs it."
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/30/2009 00:00 ||
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#2
Our own govt. should pay close attention to this. They are about one 'corporate bonuses from bailout funds' story away from a similar reaction here.
#4
It's not serious until they storm the Bastille. Seems like the French have a limited range of reactions to life's challenges. If they can't seduce it, eat it, or ignore it, they riot.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
01/30/2009 9:48 Comments ||
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#7
ION PRE-OWG EUROZONE, CHINESE MIL FORUM > WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM 2009[WEF]:GLOBAL CRISIS HAS DESTROYED 40% OF WORLD'S WEALTH [in last FIVE QUARTERS/CRISIS GETTING WORSE AND LIKELY TO LAST FOR A LONG TIME; + IMF SAYS BRITAIN TO SUFFER THE WORST RECESSION OF ANY ADVANCED NATION.
#8
I voted for Blackwell for Ohio Gov. sent campaign donation to Steele in Maryland, both solid Conservatives. Maybe this will shut up George Will and the get-alongs.
#9
Nice return to principles. Michael Steele is an admirable conservative, well-spoken, smart, intelligent, and, oh-yeah, he's black. Expect all the attention on the last part. Our MSM outrage machine needs its' lube and talking points. Fuck em. Are they against the Rep's including an "African-American" among its' leadership? If so, why shouldn't they (the doubters) be defined as racists? Please blog/comment on, so the record can be built, lying MSM MF'ers!
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/30/2009 20:09 Comments ||
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#10
Sharp guy who actually "gets" new media. The Republicans may actually turn things around. That is, if there's still a country left after the Donks are through with it.
#11
I wish him the best of luck and fully expect that he'll do a damn good job considering the trunks won't be getting any press for at least a year. Unless there's one to bash.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
01/30/2009 22:30 Comments ||
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#12
I've been a fan of Michael Steele since before he ran for the Senate in MD. I am very happy he is the new RNC Chair. Steele represents the new class of conservatives that the party needs to cultivate and put forward. A very smart and very nice guy but no pushover by any means. He's young-ish, good on camera, and can articulately communicate solid conservative values.
#1
In a YouTube video as well as an email to the 13 million supporters on his mailing list, the president-elect announced the transformation of "Obama for America" into a new organisation, "Organizing for America."
#2
Because every charismatic needs a devoted cadre of fanatical worshippers to kick in doors and mould opinions. How else do you make policy in these United States, but by getting in people's faces 24/7?
And the Clintons thought they had invented the permanent campaign... pikers.
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
01/30/2009 14:22 Comments ||
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#3
And the Clintons thought they had invented the permanent campaign... pikers.
#4
From The One July 2 in Colorado Springs: "We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives we've set. We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded."
Is this, maybe, the beginning of this "civilian security force?"
#6
ION OBAMA, ISRAELI MIL FORUM > OBAMA: RECESSION IS A [continuing/lingering] DISASTER FOR US WORKERS [US Govt = NPE-Congresscritters must legislatively create SUSTAINABLE ECON/JOBS + QUALITY OF LIFE FOR US WORKERS-FAMILIES]; + OBAMA CREATES TASK FORCE FOR ASSISTING, SAVING US MIDDLE CLASS [Biden]???
If you're a criminal and you're not entitled to be in the United States, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano wants you out of the country. Seeing how they're "illegal", wouldn't that be all of them? I think she means felons ...
Napolitano wants what she calls "criminal aliens" off American streets. She is looking at existing immigration enforcement programs to see if taxpayers are getting the most bang for their buck. "That sounds very simple, but it's historically not been done," Napolitano said, speaking to reporters and senior Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials Thursday. Not the least because the liberal progressive groups try to frustrate law enforcement at every turn ...
About 113,000 criminals who were in the U.S. illegally were deported last year, Immigration and Customs Enforcement said. The agency estimates there are now as many as 450,000 criminals in federal, state and local detention centers who are in the country illegally.
Napolitano said she wants to improve data-sharing among local, state and federal facilities. So far, there are jails in 26 counties across the country with computer systems that can talk instantly with immigration systems. So the Feds will now force the "Sanctuary" cities and counties to give up that information?
The goal, Napolitano said, is for federal immigration officials to know whether an inmate is in the country illegally immediately after he is processed into a detention facility. After the criminal serves his or her sentence, immigration officials can be ready to deport that person right away. ICE spokesman Richard Rocha said the agency plans to expand this connectivity to all state and local detention centers over the next four years.
Napolitano, whose job includes overseeing immigration laws, says she also will go after criminal fugitives who are in the country illegally Let's watch the hands and not the mouth...
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- On the same day that it announced record suicides among its soldiers, the U.S. Army said Thursday that it will soon conduct service-wide training to help identify soldiers at risk of suicide. The program will teach soldiers how to recognize behaviors that may lead to suicide, and how to intervene.
The program, which will run February 15 through March 15, will include training to recognize behaviors that may lead to suicide and instruction on how to intervene. The Army will follow the training with another teaching program, from March 15 to June 15, focused on suicide prevention at all unit levels.
Earlier Thursday, the Army reported the highest one-year level of suicides among its soldiers since it began tracking the rate 28 years ago. The Army said that 128 soldiers were confirmed to have committed suicide in 2008, and an additional 15 were suspected to have committed suicide that year in cases under investigation among active-duty soldiers and activated National Guard and reserves.
The Army's confirmed rate of suicides in 2008 was 20.2 per 100,000 soldiers. The nation's suicide rate was 19.5 per 100,000 people in 2005, a figure considered the most recent, Army officials said last month. In 2007, the Army reported 115 confirmed suicides, which was then the highest level since 1980, when it began tracking suicides.
Suicides for Marines were also up in 2008. There were 41 in 2008, up from 33 in 2007 and 25 in 2006, according to a Marines report.
In addition to the training the Army announced Thursday, the service has a program called Battlemind, intended to prepare soldiers and their families to cope with the stresses of war before, during and after deployment. It also is intended to help detect mental-health issues before and after deployments.
The Army and the National Institute of Mental Health signed an agreement in October to conduct research to identify factors affecting the mental and behavioral health of soldiers and to share strategies to lower the suicide rate. The five-year study will examine active-duty, National Guard and reserve soldiers and their families.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/30/2009 00:00 ||
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Frequent and extended separations from families are stressful, whether in the military or private business. That alone might cause an increase in suicides. In addition, that separation might keep soldiers away from the help and support they need to manage other sources of depression. And finally, in the military culture it has always been difficult to admit weakness and ask for help (this is true for many outside the military as well.) I suspect the only thing that keeps military suicides down to the level of the general population is the mutual support and bonding within units. And all of the above applies even without the stress of people shooting at you (or you at them) and trying to blow you up. Glad to see the Army re-emphasizing their concern.
#2
I concur with Glen. Continued multiple 12-15 month deployments have got to be a huge contributing factor. Also, the figures and numbers might mean a bit more if they were compaired to non-military personnel of the same age groups and gender. Married vs single, etc. Were the suicides conducted during deployments to hostile areas or upon return to CONUS? Were drugs or alcohol involved? I'm sure these factors are being examined. While I appreciate the article and the concern, it isn't an in-depth analysis of the potential causes.
#3
Another factor is behaviors and attitudes that cause the group to exclude you. The deserter from yesterday is an example. When your life can be pretty much summed up as the pits and you fail to take advantage of the new life given to you by continuing self destructive behaviors which gets you isolated in a military environment by your peers, its either run or destruction. Had two during peacetime in the division I was in, both cases the individual had just been or was being separated for behavioral problems. It's the dark side of the bonding process which is critical to small unit effectiveness. If you fail and have nothing else to fall back upon, some see it as an option.
#4
Eventually, I hope the military gets its hands on a "complex psychological battery", basically a video game that you play that spots underlying risk problems.
It is not obvious or very objective of a test, but provides a "psychological preponderance" of risk, like a warning flag.
Just for one serious problem alone, PTSD, it has been noted that soldiers follow the Standard Distribution (bell shaped) curve.
That is, about 5% *anybody* can tell they had better not be put under stress. 17% (including that 5%) will rapidly develop PTSD in a stressful situation, too quickly to be useful in such situations. Think days or a few weeks.
The middle of the curve, the bulk of military personnel, will start to experience PTSD symptoms from two months (60 days) to about four months (120 days) in stress.
The low end of the curve, again 17%, can perform for four to eight months without problems, and of them, about 5% don't develop PTSD much at all.
It is reasonable to assume that other psychological problem also fit their own SDC, but also overlay the PTSD curve as well. Added together, it makes the overall curve higher, that is, more personnel having psychological problems as time goes by.
It should also be noted that 50% of psychological problems are self-healing with stress reduction.
So the purpose of a complex battery would be almost as recreation when personnel are under stress or even on an ongoing basis. With the program and its standards continually adjusted to fit the "actual" psychological cases that come about.
What it boils down to is each soldier getting time to "play" a video game, both individually, and as a multiplayer game with his peers, superiors, and subordinates.
His individual and team efforts are analyzed, looking for similarities between them and the efforts of those diagnosed as having psychological problems.
#6
#4: Unfortunately, suicides and attempts have occurred recently among cadets at West Point.
I was a Cadet at the Air Force Academy from June through December, 1964. I spent the last three weeks of the semester in the hospital following a boxing accident, and washed out. At the same time, I DO have a bit of an inside view of cadet life most don't. During our cadet summer training ("basic"), we had three suicides from a group of about 950 people. One of them was in my "squadron". While the miliary tries to keep the numbers down, high-stress situations create problems, and not all of them can be "solved". At the same time, I personally know of only two suicides among all the people I worked with over a 26-year career.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
01/30/2009 20:25 Comments ||
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TEHRAN, Iran -- An adviser to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says he will run for re-election in June. Hope. Change. Infidels.
Press adviser Ali Akbar Javanfekr told The Associated Press on Thursday that Ahmadinejad will run to complete the programs he has started since his election in 2005.
Other officials close to Ahmadinejad had suggested he will run for re-election, and the move had been widely expected.
Under Iranian law, a president can run for two back-to-back terms.
This April, a mandate from the California Air Resources Board (CARB) called the Enhanced Vapor Recovery Program (EVRP) will go into effect. The idea behind the program is to get next-generation clean nozzles and equipment installed at fuel pumps in the state in order to control emissions. Sounds like a good thing, right? The environment wins becasue ground-level ozone should be reduced and people win, too.
What's the problem? These new cleaner gas stations aren't cheap, and "dozens, and potentially hundreds" of gas stations in California might close down instead to upgrade. In other words, in this case, going green means going out of business. According to the Pasadena Star-News, the South Coast Air Quality Management District has heard from 76 refueling sites (of about 4,500 total in its area) that will shut down because of the high costs of the EVRP. CARB responds by saying that gas prices will go up by about 0.68 cents a gallon I think that means less than a penny a gallon bit that is spread over all stations-- because the upgrade is something like $10k/pump, stations with lower volume sales would be hit far worse than high volume stations
to cover the cost of upgrading.
#3
Usually, these are the margin contract operations. However, their disappearance means less competition to the company stores, who get that twice a day call to adjust the prices. Less competition, higher prices just in the market, let alone taxes. Remember to make a 1% difference in the environment, we the wise overlords will take 10% more of your labor as we seek ever more perfection.
#5
CHINESE MIL FORUM > POSTER OP-Ed Thread - WHY JAPAN, CHRISTIANITY, AND CALIFORNIA WILL MAKE A HUGE SMACK ON CHINA!?
NOT CHINEAMERICA, BUT JAPANIFORNIA = NIPPONFORNIA [Japanusa]??? GODZILLA + SCALY/ZILLA HARD BOYZ will save Amerika, Chinia, + World from China's ONE-CHILD POLICY + CHIN-LED MOON EXPLORATIONS???
* OTOH, PAKISTANI DEFENCE FORUMS > Poster Op-ed Thread-Commentary - ONE DAY ALL CHINESE WILL BE MUSLIM?/CHINA EXPERIENCING RAPID GROWTH IN NON-TRADITIONAL FAITHS, espec CHRISTIANITY??? However, ISLAM + HINDU also making popular gains iff only in subjective "experimentation"???
NEW YORK, Jan 29 (Reuters) - The U.S. commercial paper market, the main artery of short-term funding for U.S. companies, is showing some signs of life after three months of total dependency on the Federal Reserve. Commercial paper held by the Fed declined by about $103 billion to $247 billion in the latest week. About $67 billion was reinvested in the Fed's commercial paper funding facility.
The Fed's balance sheet liabilities -- a rough gauge of the central bank's exposure to the cash-starved financial system -- shrank in the latest week as the first slew of about $170 billion that the Fed bought to support the markets came due.
This was the first time since October that investors and the Fed could gauge the state of the fragile commercial paper market. "It's a sign of a gradual reduction of reliance on the Fed facility," said Michael Feroli, economist at JPMorgan in New York.
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Posted by: Steve White ||
01/30/2009 00:00 ||
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my prediction - Paulson will be rehabilitated by history before anyone else in the Bush admin. Like maybe in a few weeks.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
The post office could be going the way of the pony express.
Zimbabwe's government admitted defeat Thursday in a fight against dizzying inflation, allowing business to be done in U.S. dollars and bank notes of neighboring countries. Zimbabwe has the world's highest official inflation, with its currency now printed in the trillions of dollars. This month, the central bank introduced a new 100 trillion Zimbabwe dollar note.
More than one million French workers downed tools yesterday in the first general strike to hit a major industrialised nation since the start of the global financial crisis. Public and private sector workers took to the streets across France to protest against President Nicolas Sarkozy's handling of the economic crisis, saying too much had been done to bail out fat cats and banks and not enough to protect jobs and help workers make ends meet.
NEW YORK, Jan 29 (Reuters) - The U.S. commercial paper market, the main artery of short-term funding for U.S. companies, is showing some signs of life after three months of total dependency on the Federal Reserve. Commercial paper held by the Fed declined by about $103 billion to $247 billion in the latest week. About $67 billion was reinvested in the Fed's commercial paper funding facility.
