Monthly Archives: May 2012
Texting While Walking Banned in New Jersey Town – $85 fine!
Avid texters beware: Fort Lee, N.J. police said they will begin issuing $85 jaywalking tickets to pedestrians who are caught texting while walking.
“It’s a big distraction. Pedestrians aren’t watching where they are going and they are not aware,” said Thomas Ripoli, chief of the Fort Lee Police Department.
Ripoli said the borough, which is home to approximately 35,000 residents, has suffered three fatal pedestrian-involved accidents this year. He hopes his crackdown on people who display dangerous behavior while walking will make his town safer, but not everyone is on board with the idea of issuing $85 tickets.
“When I walk I still look around. I’m not like constantly looking down the whole time,” said resident Sue Choe.
Another woman complained about the tickets were “a lot of money.”
Officers handed out pamphlets during a short grace period in March before they began aggressively going after “dangerous walkers.”
(Read more)
Paying for Carter’s postage, Bush’s bills, and Clinton’s rent
In 2010, taxpayer-financed expenses included $15,000 for Jimmy Carter’s postage, $579,000 for Bill Clinton’s rent and a whopping $80,000 for George W. Bush’s phone bills. It adds up: All told, U.S. taxpayers were on the hook for more than $3 million of expenses for the four surviving former U.S. presidents.
They certainly don’t seem to need the money. These days being a former U.S. President is a lucrative business. After all, Bill Clinton raked in more than $10 million just in speaking fees last year. George W. Bush made even more: $15 million just for giving speeches. (Read more)
Bush Convicted of War Crimes in Absentia
Kuala Lumpur — It’s official; George W Bush is a war criminal.
In what is the first ever conviction of its kind anywhere in the world, the former US President and seven key members of his administration were yesterday (Fri) found guilty of war crimes.
Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and their legal advisers Alberto Gonzales, David Addington, William Haynes, Jay Bybee and John Yoo were tried in absentia in Malaysia.
The trial held in Kuala Lumpur heard harrowing witness accounts from victims of torture who suffered at the hands of US soldiers and contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan.
They included testimony from British man Moazzam Begg, an ex-Guantanamo detainee and Iraqi woman Jameelah Abbas Hameedi who was tortured in the notorious Abu Ghraib prison.
At the end of the week-long hearing, the five-panel tribunal unanimously delivered guilty verdicts against Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and their key legal advisors who were all convicted as war criminals for torture and cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment. (Read more)
Ron Paul Rising — and the establishment is desperate!
Mitt Romney campaign gets busted handing out fraudulent voting slates at the State Republican convention in Reno, Nevada.
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Privately, sources close to the Ron Paul campaign say they believe Republicans will continue to ramp up his efforts to block Paul delegates at state conventions, particularly after Romney’s embarrassing delegate losses in Massachusetts. But state organizers tell Business Insider that Paul supporters are significantly more organized than Romney’s delegate team, and are ready to put up a tough fight in states like Idaho and Washington.
At this point, it is difficult to gage the actual delegate count, but even his closest campaign advisors admit it would be virtually impossible for Paul to deny Romney the nomination in Tampa.
So why are Establishment Republicans so concerned?
Even if the nomination is not in play, an army of Paul delegates could cause significant problems for the presumptive nominee, who needs a smooth convention to assuage concerns about his ability to unite and energize the Republican base.
While some of Paul’s delegates will be bound to vote for Romney on the first ballot, they will not answer to Romney’s campaign. That means that the presumptive nominee will have little control over how those delegates vote on the other issues at the convention, including the party platform, the convention chair, and even the vice-presidential nominee. If Paul winds up with the majority of delegates in six states — and it looks like he might — they will have the power to stop the convention proceedings, and make a motion on anything from electing a new convention chair, to changing the rules, to introducing new platform positions.
(Read more)
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In Oklahoma, GOP defies vote to adjourn & appeals, walls off part of convention hall.
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60 Minutes censors Paypal co-founder’s endorsement of Ron Paul.
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Fox (as usual) attacks Ron Paul on foreign policy and Israel. Ron Paul (as usual) knocks it out of the park.
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In Maine, GOP invalidates Ron Paul ballots:
Romney Camp Circulates Fake List of Paul Delegate Nominees at Maine GOP
The Great Obama “Fact Check Error” — old bio describes Obama as born in Kenya, raised in Indonesia
Lew Rockwell attends publich high school graduation
Lew Rockwell At the local public high school graduation last night, there was no valedictorian or salutatorian speaking or even announced. I guess, just as that government institution abolished its honors classes in the name of egalitarianism, it has gotten rid of recognition for individual achievement. So, there were no prizes, either. Instead, the class president gave an interminable talk full of chants. Then he lead the chorus, the band, and the students in a rendition of “Lean on Me.” Oh, and there were also idiot speeches by the head of the board of education, the superintendent of schools, and the principal. The kids did finally escape their warden and guards, so that was good news.
ACTA Gets Killed, Score A Partial Win For The Internet
After MegaUpload received a fatality at the hands of Homeland Security, it was looking as if SOPA and PIPA weren’t needed after all to strike fear into the hearts of gamers, movie goers and music aficionados alike. Well, score another win for internet citizens as ACTA is as good as dead…in Europe that is.
A reader tipped us off to the recent news that ACTA, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement — a multinational trade agreement that was just as vile as other copyright infringement security establishments, such as CISPA — is dead in the water…in Europe.
The ACTA treaty would basically give undefined control and authority over the censorship and dictation on the flow of information and free speech. (Read more)
Leaked Memo: Afghan ‘Burn Pit’ Could Wreck Troops’ Hearts, Lungs
well, shit.
For years, U.S. government agencies have told the public, veterans and Congress that they couldn’t draw any connections between the so-called “burn pits” disposing of trash at the military’s biggest bases and veterans’ respiratory or cardiopulmonary problems. But a 2011 Army memo obtained by Danger Room flat-out stated that the burn pit at one of Afghanistan’s largest bases poses “long-term adverse health conditions” to troops breathing the air there.
The unclassified memo (.jpg), dated April 15, 2011, stated that high concentrations of dust and burned waste present at Bagram Airfield for most of the war are likely to impact veterans’ health for the rest of their lives. “The long term health risk” from breathing in Bagram’s particulate-rich air include “reduced lung function or exacerbated chronic bronchitis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), asthma, atherosclerosis, or other cardiopulmonary diseases.” Service members may not necessarily “acquire adverse long term pulmonary or heart conditions,” but “the risk for such is increased.” (Read more)
Afghans thwarting ‘insider’ plots to kill NATO forces, says top U.S. commander John Allen
How badly are things going in Afghanistan? The top U.S. and NATO commander, Gen. John Allen, told reporters it was “good news” that Afghan authorities had arrested 160 people in the last few months for plotting so-called “green-on-blue” attacks by Afghan security forces on their NATO-led international partners.
Update, Tuesday May 22, 11:42 a.m.: A NATO International Security Assistance Force spokesman says Allen was talking about thwarted insurgent plots, not insider attacks.
Allen was describing how the alliance and the government in Kabul have responded to a spate of deadly insider attacks. He cited “an eight-step vetting process” to screen new members of the Afghan armed forces. (Read more)
Pakistan seeks $5,000 transit fee for each NATO container
Pakistani negotiators have proposed a fee of about $5,000 for each NATO shipping container and tanker that transits its territory by land into and out of Afghanistan.
The amount is a key sticking point in discussions about the terms of a deal that would allow the traffic to resume, about six months after Pakistan closed its border crossings, according to U.S. and Pakistani officials. (Read more)
“Across Italy police are cracking down on Ferrari and Lamborghini drivers [because they are rich]”
Across Italy police are cracking down on Ferrari and Lamborghini drivers, but not because they are driving too fast. Italy, like so much of southern Europe, is drowning in debt, so police are pursuing drivers to make sure they are declaring – and therefore paying taxes on – earnings that would allow them to afford cars worth as much as half a million dollars.
The targeting is part of an ongoing war on tax cheats, an attempt to shore up $2.5 trillion of the country’s public debt and change a culture that has often prided itself on avoiding taxes. Tax authorities have long carried out much-publicized checks on owners of luxury cars, yachts, even nightclubs that don’t issue proper receipts. But since the unelected, technocratic government took power in November, it has made enforcing tax collections a priority. (Read more)
Atlas will shrug.
Julia — Obama’s Dependent Slave
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Europe’s worst fear: Spain and Greece spiral down together
In a season of nightmare projections for Europe, this one could be the scariest: Greece leaves the euro currency union at the same time that Spain’s banking system is collapsing.
In many ways, the market convulsion last week was a test run for those crises, as political deadlock in Greece and mounting fears over the health of Bankia, one of the largest consumer banks in Spain, converged. . . .
The money available to Europe within its main bailout fund, about 780 billion euros ($997 billion) would not be enough to handle the twin calamities of a Greek euro exit and a Spanish banking implosion.
And despite recent statements from Germany and leaders of the Group of Eight industrialized nations to encourage economic growth in the eurozone, Europeans may have little desire to continue financing the debt disasters of other countries.
“When you have Greece and Spain happening at the same time, the problem becomes exponential and very, very dangerous,” said Stephen Jen, a former economist at the International Monetary Fund who runs a hedge fund in London. “So far, the policy has been to buy time and build a firewall – but that just makes the cost bigger. There is just no good ending here.”
The numbers do look dire. (Read more)
Let the banks who made bad loans fail!!!!
Danger lies in that they made the bad loans to governments, and government have a lot of guns.
An undergraduate takes-down Paul Krugman
Paul Krugman gave up being an honest economist a long time ago – shortly after he learned that the cool crowd gave him more attention when he conjured up economic-like arguments to support the left’s irrational view of the world.
His most recent piece of propaganda claims that increased national debt causes economic growth. He supports his claim by looking at 5 countries and showing that the countries with higher debt levels grew faster over the last 3 months. Thousands of Krugman zombies must have been elated to finally see hard evidence that the 1% aren’t any smarter or harder working: All you have to do is take on a lot of credit card debt.
But an economic Jedi — an undergraduate from the University of Illinois — uncovered the subtle flaw in Krugman’s logic: The earth has more than 5 countries, and the world wasn’t created 3 months ago. The student used a graph posted on his Facebook page to show that if you look at the 21 largest countries over the past year, you see a strong, clear relationship: Economies with higher debt grow less.
(Read more)