More importantly we look at the weird cycles.
EL PASO, Texas — An ABC-7 crew covering a crash on I-10 on Monday unwillingly became part of the story.
Motorists stuck in traffic witnessed veteran journalist Darren Hunt and photojournalist Ric Dupont being handcuffed and detained.
Just after 1:30 p.m., the two arrived to report on a flipped semi-truck on I-10 West near the Sunland Park exit. They parked on the left shoulder of the eastbound lanes of I-10 as witnesses ran toward victims to offer help.
A pregnant woman sat on the side of the freeway, sobbing, and, according to a witness, several men in military fatigues helped pull the driver of the semi-truck out of the cab.
As emergency crews tended to the driver, police Sgt. Raul Ramirez told the ABC-7 crew from across the barrier to leave. Several people and half a dozen cars were also stopped on the eastbound shoulder.
Darren continued to try to get information from the men in fatigues when the situation began to escalate. The sergeant jumped the barrier and told Darren to get in the truck (an ABC-7 news unit) and leave, then held Darren with his hands behind his back to the side of the truck belonging to a witness that was parked on the shoulder.
OBEY! Resistance is futile!
I am a TARP wife.
In keeping with the unwritten code of this new sisterhood, I have taken a vow of financial abstinence. I returned the presents my husband gave me for Christmas (but didn’t tell him, since he’s already awash in gloom) and am using my credit balances at all the major department stores for important gifts and other necessities.
I haven’t even looked at spring clothes; God forbid someone catches me out in something new. Keeping up with fashion seems somehow decadent in this new era, like getting Botox injections or catered dinners. Like so many others, I’m shopping in my closet. I’ve bought exactly two things this year—makeup and panty hose. If I buy a present for someone, I have the package sent to their home. I don’t want to be spotted climbing into a taxi, laden with Bergdorf Goodman shopping bags.
As you can see, being a TARP wife means, in short, making decisions according to a complex algorithm: balancing the need to look like your world hasn’t crumbled beneath you—let’s not alarm the investors!—with the need to appear duly repentant for your subprime sins. It also means we’re part of the community of more than 400 companies that have received government bailout funds, whose fall from grace has been swifter and harsher than any since Mao frog-marched intellectuals into China’s countryside.
And it goes on and on. You really should read this whole article, it’s guaranteed to break your heart. *sniff*
A new airline scheduled to take off in the US fully expects its passengers to behave like animals.
On Pet Airways, of Delray Beach, Florida, all pets travel in the main cabin and owners are not allowed on board – not even in the cargo hold. The airline claims to be the first designed specifically for the safe and comfortable transportation of pets.
Company founders Dan Wiesel and Alysa Binder say they got the idea while planning holidays with their pet dog. “Currently, most pets travelling by air are transported in the cargo hold and are handled as baggage,” said Mr Wiesel.
“The experience is frightening to the pets, and can cause severe emotional and physical harm, even death. This is not what most pet owners want to subject their pets to, but they have had no other choice, until now.” Pets – or pawsengers, as the airline calls them – can be booked in online and are checked in to a Pet Lounge at the airport.
Pet attendants give the animals a “potty break” shortly before take-off and then monitor the animals during the flight.
Owners – or Pet Parents – can follow their travel progress using an online “pet tracker”.
On its website, the airline promises never to leave a pet alone adding: “A pet attendant will always be within a cat’s meow.”
At least they can’t complain about being treated like a dog…and I’ll bet the food’s better!
Daylife/Reuters Pictures
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A Congressional panel is expected to approve legislation…that would curb high credit card fees and penalties assessed by many banks that have benefited from the federal government’s financial bailout program.
The pro-consumer bill, which would mean sweeping changes for banks that issue cards, is an important test of the political will of Democrats who are pushing for U.S. financial regulation reform…
“It’s a new era in Washington,” said Rep. Carolyn Maloney, a New York Democrat and chief sponsor of the House bill. “It’s taken three years of hard work, but I’m delighted that we’re on the brink of real protections for consumers.”
Her proposed legislation would halt credit cards from imposing arbitrary rate increases and penalties and certain billing practices on balances with different rates. It is expected to win approval by the committee, and later by the full House.
But it remains unclear whether Democrats in the Senate can muster the 60 votes needed in that chamber to advance controversial legislation amid stiff opposition from the banking industry. The Senate’s version of a credit card reform bill includes tougher language…
U.S. lawmakers have expressed anger that the same banks such as Bank of America, Citi and Chase with big credit card operations, charge excessive interest rates and fees while getting U.S. government bailout from the taxpayers who use these credit cards.
There was a time in this land when usury was illegal. States had laws generally prohibiting interest rates higher than 18%. Now, between payday loan sharks and the greediest banks on Earth, interest rates that blow through that old ceiling – are the rule. This bill could begin a turnaround.
Keep an eye on the vote in Congress on this one – and you’ll see who is owned by the banks.
Daylife/Getty Images
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A top executive at Freddie Mac was found dead Wednesday morning from an apparent suicide, according to CBS affiliate WUSA-TV in Washington, D.C.
David Kellermann, the acting chief financial officer and senior vice president of the government-sponsored mortgage lender, was found dead in his home after his wife alerted Fairfax County Police to his suicide, authorities told WUSA.
According to Kellermann’s bio on Freddie Mac’s Website, the 41-year-old was with the company for more than 16 years and was named acting CFO in September.
That was the same month Freddie Mac was placed under conservatorship by the U.S. Treasury as a result of the subprime mortgage crisis.
Phew!
 All the way to the bank! |
Susan Boyle offered $1 million to lose virginity on camera – Yahoo7 TV — FYI. They have to keep this woman in the headlines until she finishes the album and appears on Oprah.
“An American porn company is hoping to cash in on the phenomenal popularity of Susan Boyle, offering her US$1 million to lose her virginity on camera.
Boyle is the dowdy Scottish singer who was launched to instant fame after appearing on the UK reality series Britain’s Got Talent, where she stunned the show’s judges with an angelic rendition of the Les Miserables song ‘I Dreamed a Dream’.
People all around the world are captivated by 47-year-old Boyle’s voice, her frumpy appearance and her unusual personality — she claims she’s a virgin and has never even been kissed.
President Barack Obama left the door open Tuesday to prosecuting Bush administration officials who devised the legal authority for gruesome terrorism-suspect interrogations, saying the United States lost “our moral bearings” with use of the tactics.
The question of whether to bring charges against those who devised justification for the methods “is going to be more of a decision for the attorney general within the parameters of various laws and I don’t want to prejudge that,” Obama said.
On Friday, the trial of the Pirate Bay, the Web’s highest-profile source of TV shows, movies and music, came to an end when a Swedish court found the administrators of the site guilty of copyright infringement, sentencing them to a year in prison and more than $3 million in fines.
But even if the Pirate Bay sinks, putting an end to file-sharing isn’t so simple. Waiting in the wings to absorb the site’s audience are dozens of second-string bittorrent tracker and index sites that have avoided the Pirate Bay’s level of notoriety, including Mininova, isoHunt and Demonoid. And according to Ben Edelman, a professor at Harvard’s Business School focused on Internet regulation, that longer-tail assortment of piracy outlets means the starting point for finding pirated content has shifted to an even more resilient source: Google.
“Google now can and does do what the Pirate Bay has always done,” Edelman says. “And if they’re prosecuted, they would have much more interesting arguments in their defense.”
But Google and Yahoo! have always been a starting point for peer-to-peer piracy, says Eric Garland, chief executive of the bittorrent research firm Big Champagne. In focus groups, Garland says he’s found that users begin their searches for pirated movies on search engines as often as any source, including the Pirate Bay. That means preventing a user from downloading copyrighted files would mean not simply shutting down the Pirate Bay, but every one of the lesser-traveled sites that Google or Yahoo! provide links to.
“I’ve argued for years that the real battle rights holders are fighting isn’t with individual users or file-sharing sites, but with search,” Garland says. “As long as there’s robust search that allows people to find the titles they’re seeking, you will have this problem, period.“
Actually we don’t have to speculate about this. The IFPI, which sued the Pirate Bay, was specifically asked why it did not sue Google. The answer was not because Google was somehow different from the Pirate Bay or that Google was somehow exempt under the law. The sole reason the IFPI gave is because, unlike the Pirate Bay, Google plays along:
“We have approached Google and told them about this. We have asked them if they want to be our opponents or our partners. We have ten people in London working with them on a daily basis [to make illegal music unavailable]. If Google had indicated they would be our opponent, we would have taken them to court.”
In other words, if the Pirate Bay is guilty, so is Google. But Google gets a reprieve as long as it plays the IFPI’s game. But I can’t help but wonder how far Google will bend over to help the IFPI.
On the day the new Congress convened this year, Sen. Dianne Feinstein introduced legislation to route $25 billion in taxpayer money to a government agency that had just awarded her husband’s real estate firm a lucrative contract to sell foreclosed properties at compensation rates higher than the industry norms.
Mrs. Feinstein’s intervention on behalf of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. was unusual: the California Democrat isn’t a member of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs with jurisdiction over FDIC; and the agency is supposed to operate from money it raises from bank-paid insurance payments – not direct federal dollars. Documents reviewed by The Washington Times show Mrs. Feinstein first offered Oct. 30 to help the FDIC secure money for its effort to stem the rise of home foreclosures. Her letter was sent just days before the agency determined that CB Richard Ellis Group (CBRE) – the commercial real estate firm that her husband Richard Blum heads as board chairman – had won the competitive bidding for a contract to sell foreclosed properties that FDIC had inherited from failed banks.
About the same time of the contract award, Mr. Blum’s private investment firm reported to the Securities and Exchange Commission that it and related affiliates had purchased more than 10 million new shares in CBRE. The shares were purchased for the going price of $3.77; CBRE’s stock closed Monday at $5.14.
Mrs. Feinstein and Mr. Blum, a wealthy investment banker, are a power couple in both Washington and California who sat behind President Obama during his inauguration in January. Mrs. Feinstein also is mentioned as a candidate for California governor.
Is “conflict of interest” a term that’s observed in politics anymore? I know, I know, it’s a stupid question.
The Supreme Court today sharply limited the power of police to search a suspect’s car after making an arrest, acknowledging that the decision changes a rule that law enforcement has relied on for nearly 30 years.
In a decision written by Justice John Paul Stevens, an unusual five-member majority said police may search a vehicle without a warrant only when the suspect could reach for a weapon or try to destroy evidence or when it is “reasonable to believe” there is evidence in the car supporting the crime at hand.
The court noted that law enforcement for years has interpreted the court’s rulings on warrantless car searches to mean that officers may search the passenger compartment of a vehicle as part of a lawful arrest of a suspect. But Stevens said that was a misreading of the court’s decision in New York v. Belton in 1981. “Blind adherence to Belton’s faulty assumption would authorize myriad unconstitutional searches,” Stevens said, adding that the court’s tradition of honoring past decisions did not bind it to continue such a view of the law.
“The doctrine of stare decisis does not require us to approve routine constitutional violations.” Stevens was joined by two of his most liberal colleagues — Justices David H. Souter and Ruth Bader Ginsburg — and two of his most conservative — Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.
The decision overturned a three-year prison sentence for Arizonan Rodney Gant, who had been convicted of cocaine possession. Police found the drug in a search of his car, following his arrest for driving with a suspended license. Gant had already walked away from his car when he was arrested, and he sat handcuffed a distance away while police searched his car. “Police could not reasonably have believed either that Gant could have accessed his car at the time of the search or that evidence of the offense for which he was arrested might have been found therein,” Stevens wrote.
The key here is you have to be under arrest before they can search your car under these guidelines. So what has changed? The wording “only when a suspect could reach for a weapon” leaves it wide open in my opinion. And how can this be applied to Border patrol searches (well outside of any border) when you are ordered to exit your vehicle with no probable cause so they can search it? Confusing.
For Kindle and with free ePub version. Only $9.49 Great reading.
Here is what Gary Shapiro CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) said: Dvorak's writing sings with insight and clarity. Whether or not you agree with John's views, he will get you thinking and is never boring. These essays are worth the read!
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