 Click image to go to No Agenda. |
John and Adam discuss the current news with an International Perspective
Queue / cue / Q the closing credits — We hope you enjoy the show!
Running time: approx. 95 mins.
Courtesy AP
|
How many years will he get?
Saying he was “deeply sorry and ashamed,” Bernard Madoff pleaded guilty Thursday to pulling off perhaps the biggest swindle in Wall Street history and was immediately led off to jail in handcuffs after his seething victims applauded in the courtroom.
U.S. District Judge Denny Chin denied bail for Madoff, 70, and ordered him to jail, noting that he had the means to flee and an incentive to do so because of his age.
“I am actually grateful for this opportunity to publicly comment about my crimes, for which I am deeply sorry and ashamed,” he said.
“As the years went by, I realized my risk and this day would inevitably come. I cannot adequately express how sorry I am for my crimes.”
“I don’t think he has a sincere bone in his body,” said DeWitt [Baker], who noted that prison time would be too good for Madoff. “I’d stone him to death,” he said.
Madoff did not look at any of the three investors who spoke at the hearing, even when one turned in his direction and tried to address him.
The fraud, which prosecutors say may have totaled nearly $65 billion, turned a revered money man into an overnight global disgrace whose name became synonymous with the current economic meltdown.
$65 billion? Chump change when compared with the Obama bailout that may have been partially a result of this.
Climate change deniers are “ridiculous” and akin to “flat-earthers”, according to Sir Nicholas Stern, who advised the government about the economic threat posed by global warming. The respected economist compared climate naysayers to those who deny the link between smoking and cancer or HIV and Aids in the face of mounting scientific evidence.
Socialist/activist/columnist George Monbiot chimes in with another funny analogy. Apparently if you question the global warming agenda you think AIDS can be treated with beetroot and lemon juice. Interesting assertion by a non-existent association. I mean, cripes!
Sammy Wilson’s appointment as Northern Ireland environment minister appears to have been conceived as some sort of practical joke. It’s no longer very funny. He fills the same role as the former South African health minister, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, who claimed that Aids could be treated with beetroot and lemon juice.
Huh?
 How Guzman makes his billion$ |
Forbes magazine’s latest list of the world’s billionaires includes Mexico’s most wanted man – Joaquin Guzman. The 54-year-old, who is said to be the head of one of Mexico’s most powerful drug cartels, is 701st on the list with an estimated fortune of $1 billion.
Mr Guzman, who escaped from a Mexican prison on 2001, is understood to be at large in Mexico or Central America.
Forbes estimates that last year Mexican and Colombian traffickers made between $18 billion and $39 billion. Mr Guzman’s slice of that pie comes from his assumed control of the Sinaloa cartel, which is named after the Mexican state in which it is based.
For over a year the Sinaloa Cartel has been trying to oust a rival gang from the border city of Ciudad Juarez; the turf war has left more than 2,000 people dead.
Those who have met Mr Guzman, who stands at just 5 feet tall (152cm), describe him as a man of extraordinary charisma and intelligence.
I get pissed off when people waste my time describing the positive qualities of a scumbag. What should charisma count with a thug who orders the murder of thousands of people?
On manipulating the market: “A lot of times when I was short at my hedge fund, and I was positioned short, meaning I needed it down, I would create a level of activity before hand that could drive the futures,”
-On falsely creating the impression a stock is down (what he calls “fomenting”): “You can’t foment. That’s a violation… But you do it anyway because the SEC doesn’t understand it.” He adds, “When you have six days and your company may be in doubt because you are down, I think it is really important to foment.”
-On the truth: “What’s important when you are in that hedge fund mode is to not be doing anything that is remotely truthful, because the truth is so against your view – it is important to create a new truth to develop a fiction,” Cramer advises. “You can’t take any chances.”
Saw this a few places, this morning. Just before posting based on news services, I discovered that Om Malik was already a GrandCentral customer. So, he’s already in on the beta:
GrandCentral, a “one number for life” service provider acquired by Google in July 2007 is being reborn as Google Voice, a comprehensive service that is essentially a Microsoft Office-type suite of communications-related services. I say that because the new service is a collection of VoIP-related features that one can typically get from different startups. New features include:
1. You can use your GrandCentral number to send and receive SMS messages, and have them forwarded to your current wireless phone. You can send messages from the mobile or from the phone.
2. Make phone calls using the web or your mobile/landline phone.
3. You can get transcripts for voicemails left on Google Voice. These transcripts, based on internal Google technology currently being used by GOOG-411 service, can be sent to you via SMS.
4. Create conference calls by dragging phone numbers onto existing calls. This will be useful for small businesses and web workers.
5. Free calls to all U.S. numbers. You can make international calls but that will cost you, depending on the country you are dialing.
Found by Aric Mackey.
 Now, can I have one of these? |
A new twist on the familiar lithium ion battery has yielded a type of power-storing material that charges and discharges at lightning speed. The finding could offer a boost for plug-in hybrid and electric vehicles and possibly allow cell phone batteries to regain a full charge in seconds rather than hours.
Rechargeable lithium ion batteries are small and light, yet can store copious amounts of energy, making them ideal for use in everyday electronic devices such as iPods and laptops. This valuable property, called energy density, can be scaled up for hybrid cars as well as for the all-electric Roadster built by Tesla Motors that relies on lithium ion batteries…and the similarly powered Chevy Volt plug-in electric, about to hit the market.
One downside: lithium ion batteries do not dispense their charge—carried by lithium ions and electrons, hence the power source’s name—very quickly compared with some other types of storage batteries. Like a huge auditorium that only has a few doors, getting a large volume of patrons (lithium ions) in and out is a drawn-out affair…The slow exchange of ions also means lithium ion batteries recharge slowly—just think of how long you have to charge your tiny cell phone.
In an attempt to pick up the pace, the M.I.T. researchers coated the lithium iron phosphate material with an ion conductor, which in this case was a layer of glasslike lithium phosphate. Sure enough, the charge-carrying ions traveled much faster from their storage medium; a prototype battery the scientists built completely charged in about 10 to 20 seconds…
Two companies have already licensed the technology, according to Byoungwoo Kang. Researchers are not sure how much these batteries will cost when they hit the market, but Kang says they should be reasonably priced, given that it should be relatively cheap to produce them.
Good possibilities of this tech hitting the streets within the next couple of years. No changes in basic production technology or components. Just one change along the way.
Which is why companies are already licensing the tech.
[T]he Apple CEO has been on a crusade to wipe moving parts from the face of Apple’s products as early as the replacement of PowerBook trackballs with trackpads or the removal of the physical scroll wheel from the original iPod. The iPhone and iPod touch were further steps towards a button-free world, relegating as many controls as possible on the touchscreen.
And now we have the buttonless iPod shuffle. With the exception of a single switch that controls the unit’s power and lets you change between shuffle and ordered play, the iPod shuffle itself contains no buttons. Instead, the playback controls are integrated into the headphone cord: you can squeeze either the top, bottom, or center of the remote to execute different functions.
If you ask me, the war on buttons has gone too far. […] The fact that Apple has to put up this diagram tells you how much more complicated it is: how would you figure out the controls without this chart? The only markings on the controls are the “+” and “-” that mark volume controls. There is no indication of how to play or pause music.
[…]
I understand the desire for the Apple design team to push themselves and try to accomplish something new and perhaps even revolutionary, but in the words of Dr. Ian Malcolm, perhaps they were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.
As this other article points out, 3rd parties should soon have adapters to allow other earphones. If Apple allows them.
So, if this went into effect, then if the government didn’t like a website — say, DU that criticized it — then everyone in the UK could be cut off from accessing DU. Censorship control to information is the first step to totalitarianism. Orwell, a Brit, would have understood.
The UK government wants to cut out users rights to access Internet content, applications and services. Some of the information used to justify the change has been cut and pasted from the Wikipedia.
Amendments to the Telecoms Package circulated in Brussels by the UK government, seek to cross out users’ rights to access and distribute Internet content and services. And they want to replace it with a ‘principle’ that users can be told not only the conditions for access, but also the conditions for the use of applications and services.
[…]
The proposed amendments cut out completely any users’ rights to do with content – whether accessing or distributing – which would appear to be in breach of the European Charter of Fundamental rights, Article 10. The Charter states that everyone has the right “to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers.” In the digital age, the Internet, and the associated applications and services provided by the World Wide Web, is the means by which people exercise that right.
[…]
La Quadrature du Net comments that these amendments will obligate national telecommunications regulators to enforce a new business model, which is more like a cable television model and quite different from the Internet service provider model. At the same time, they remove the obligation from telecommunications regulators to guarantee users’ rights to access and distribute Internet content services and applications.The amendments, if carried, would reverse the principle of end-to-end connectivity which has underpinned not only the Internet, but also European telecommunications policy, to date.
Such a reversal would lead to a fragmentation of the internal market for communications and for e-commerce. If for example, the UK wants to limit users to just a few websites (as is rumoured lie behind the amendments), then it is not only restricting the subscriber who is paying for the service. The effect will be that it renders invisible the millions of other websites that are not on the ‘just a few’ list. By default, this reduces the size of the market that is available to those millions of invisible websites. It also threatens the business models of Internet giants such as Google.
Found by Brother Uncle Don
On Glenn Beck’s radio show last week, I quipped in response to our wayward federal government, “I may run for president of Texas.”
That need may be a reality sooner than we think. If not me, someone someday may again be running for president of the Lone Star state, if the state of the union continues to turn into the enemy of the state.
From the East Coast to the “Left Coast,” America seems to be moving further and further from its founders’ vision and government.
“We view ourselves on the eve of battle. We are nerved for the contest, and must conquer or perish. It is vain to look for present aid: None is at hand. We must now act or abandon all hope! Rally to the standard, and be no longer the scoff of mercenary tongues! Be men, be free men, that your children may bless their father’s name.”
Thanks to Carcarius for the tip!
This has a lot to do with the fact that Obama is not helping with his “we’re all doomed” and “things are going to get WORSE!” speeches rather than uplifting the public with a positive message. The public needs and expects a President who will lie to us to make us feel better. Or do we actually believe the honesty baloney? If so then we are doomed. The situation Roosevelt walked into was much worse than this. But he was uplifting, not depressing.
Found by John Ligums.
Flashback: Carville Wanted Bush to Fail – FOXNews.com — This story has been developed from probably good sources in an attempt to defend the Rush Limbaugh comments that were taken out of context.
 Eh. So what? |
My question about this or about the Limbaugh remark: Who cares!?!?!? Why did it become a big deal about someone wanting Obama to fail or succeed in the first place? Are they 12-year olds? I’m sure there is some old fart bitching about Obama right now. So what? Are we all supposed to stop the presses because everyone does not 100-percent love the guy? Is this Venezuela? That said, it is funny how the media covered up this tale. THAT is the story here.
On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, just minutes before learning of the terrorist attacks on America, Democratic strategist James Carville was hoping for President Bush to fail, telling a group of Washington reporters: “I certainly hope he doesn’t succeed.”
Carville was joined by Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg, who seemed encouraged by a survey he had just completed that revealed public misgivings about the newly minted president.
“We rush into these focus groups with these doubts that people have about him, and I’m wanting them to turn against him,” Greenberg admitted.
The pollster added with a chuckle of disbelief: “They don’t want him to fail. I mean, they think it matters if the president of the United States fails.”
Minutes later, as news of the terrorist attacks reached the hotel conference room where the Democrats were having breakfast with the reporters, Carville announced: “Disregard everything we just said! This changes everything!”
The press followed Carville’s orders, never reporting his or Greenberg’s desire for Bush to fail. The omission was understandable at first, as reporters were consumed with chronicling the new war on terror. But months and even years later, the mainstream media chose to never resurrect those controversial sentiments, voiced by the Democratic Party’s top strategists, that Bush should fail.
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!
Subscribe to Main Blog feed here:
Subscribe to Comments too (below):
Bad Behavior has blocked 9816 access attempts in the last 7 days.