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Showing posts from January, 2014

Not so smart Cell phone data collection shows that worst fears of Big Brother realized

By Jeff Myrick - Hutchinson News editorial board That smart phone tucked away in a pocket or purse just may be acting as Big Brother for governmental spy agencies, according to a story this week in The New York Times. What information is being gleaned from the cell phone may be as simple as where the user is or what he or she will be doing next to more extensive details used by marketing people to customize advertising to be sent to the user. It depends on what apps are installed and activities done frequently on the phone. An example of that is the extremely popular game application "Angry Birds." While the gamer may be slinging birds, in the background data such as the player's age, sex, location and other information is being gathered. The Times story revealed what the National Security Agency and its British counterpart, Britain's Government Communications Headquarters, were able to gather from cell phones. The information came to light through the leaks that

RED States Rule

Income is growing much faster in Republican-leaning "red states" than in Democratic-tilting "blue states" or the pivotal swing states that will decide the 2012 presidential election, a USA TODAY analysis finds. By Dale Wetzel, AP Construction workers lift materials at an apartment site in northeast Bismarck, N.D., on Tuesday. According to a USA TODAY analysis, North Dakota, a red state, tops the nation in income growth thanks to an oil boom. Construction workers lift materials at an apartment site in northeast Bismarck, N.D., on Tuesday. According to a USA TODAY analysis, North Dakota, a red state, tops the nation in income growth thanks to an oil boom. Sponsored LinksPersonal income in 23 red states has risen 4.6% since the recession began in December 2007, after adjusting for inflation. Income is up just 0.5% in 15 blue states and Washington, D.C. , during that time. In the dozen swing states identified by USA TODAY that could vote either way Nov. 6,

That Florida woman's canceled Blue Cross policy? It's junk insurance. She can get a real plan for only $165 a month

.Did you recently get a notice saying that your insurance company is canceling your policy because it doesn't meet the new health law's higher standards? Thousands of people are, and many are angry about it. But before you rush to judgement, it might not be as bad as it seems. Conisder the case of Diane Barrette, a 56-year-old woman from Winter Haven, Fla. Her story was featured in this CBS News report and endlessly echoed on the Internet. She was upset because Blue Cross Blue Shield of Florida was canceling her $54-a-month “GoBlue plan 91” and offering to replace it with a $591-a-month “Blue Options Essential plan.” Sounds terrible—except that Barrette’s expiring policy is a textbook example of a junk plan that isn’t real health insurance at all. If she had ever tried to use it for anything more than an occasional doctor visit or inexpensive prescription, she would have ended up with tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars of medical debt. Here are some of the gory detai

Dancing West Palm Beach sign spinner arrested, accused of distracting drivers

January 29, 2014 | By Brett Clarkson, Sun Sentinel An enthusiastic West Palm Beach sign spinner was arrested Tuesday afternoon after a driver complained to deputies that the young man was dancing in the street and distracting drivers. But it's not going to change Ryan Brown's employment status with the West Palm flooring company he works for, his boss said. "He loves to dance, and some people like it and some don't," said Hector Peart, who owns Cornerstone Tile and Flooring, Inc. Peart described the arrest as "not fair." Brown, 22, was holding a sign advertising a sale at Cornerstone at about 12:35 p.m. Tuesday at the intersection of Okeechobee Boulevard, Wabasso Drive, and Palm Beach Lakes Boulevard in suburban West Palm, according to a Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office arrest report. The situation began when a driver flagged down a deputy to complain about the road dancing, the report stated. The deputy wrote in the report t

The Price Of Amazon Prime May Go Up For First Time -- By A Lot

The price of Prime, the $79 yearly subscription that includes free two-day shipping,( that you can order from this page prime ) may increase between $20 and $40 in the U.S., the company said late Thursday in a call with investors and analysts. The price of Prime hasn't changed in the nine years since it first launched. The company said the increases were the result of rising fuel and shipping costs over the past near-decade. Join Amazon Prime - Watch Over 40,000 Movies & TV Shows Anytime - Start Free Trial Now Tom Szkutak, Amazon's CFO, said that Amazon was "considering" a price increase, but didn't give a timeline as to when it would go in effect. He also declined to answer an analyst's question about how the price increase would be implemented, so it's unclear if existing Prime members would be grandfathered in at $79. Amazon Prime initially gave customers free two-day shipping on over 1 million items. It has since grown to incl

Cut On Camera - Cops Cut Off A Woman's Weave Read

A police officer in Michigan put a young mother into a restraining chair and hacked off her hair weave. Video shows an officer shoving Charda Gregory, restraining her, and then using scissors to cut out the artificial hair that was sewn into a braid on Gregory’s scalp. “I was confused. I didn’t know what happened and what was going on,” said Gregory. Warren police officials say they do ask prisoners to remove clipped-in long hair extensions, so they can’t be used as a weapon or to commit suicide. But a weave is different, and Police Commissioner Jere Green says what Officer Bernadette Najor did was not a proper use of force. “There’s a real simple thing: it’s called right and wrong. And to me this is something that I won’t tolerate, I don’t think the citizens of Warren will tolerate it,” said Green.

Is it time to bin YOUR bra? Kelly Brook and Kim Kardashian spark trend for bralessness amid reports it could be better for breasts

Barn explodes due to farting cows

Excessive bovine flatulence caused an explosion in a barn (Picture: Reuters) You know you need to get help for your flatulence when your farts cause a barn to blow up. That’s what happened when 90 cows created so much methane gas that it caught fire and blew up a shed in Rasdorf, Germany. The gas had steadily built up in the structure and was ignited on Monday when ‘a static electric charge caused the gas to explode with flashes of flames,’ the police said in a statement. Twitter user Mocking Bard was shocked by the news and wrote: ‘So a German cow actually started a fire with a fart. And then you ask why people worship cows.’ Jeremy Cowles was similarly alarmed and added: ‘Cow farts are a serious health hazard.’ Luckily only one cow suffered minor injuries but the barn didn’t get off so lightly, with its roof being damaged.

Return of the Black Death: Ancient bug plagues us once again

Bubonic plague is still ‘alive’ and well today… (Picture: Getty) Scientists this week warned a strain of plague that killed more than 100million people could rise from the dead and strike again. Their chilling vision sounds like something from a fanciful Hollywood script but for the people of Madagascar, it is a grim reality. About 40 people on the island, just off the coast of south-east Africa, have died of the plague. Characterised by painful swellings, or buboes, in the lymph nodes, bubonic plague – or the Black Death – killed an estimated 25million people in Europe during the Middle Ages. It is most commonly transmitted by flea bites and can be treated with antibiotics, if the strain is not drug-resistant. In its pneumonic form, plague is even more lethal. It can kill within 24 hours and is transmitted from person to person through infected droplets spread by coughing. The recent outbreak was one of the worst globally in

North Dakota Cow Thief Is First American Arrested, Jailed With Drone’s Help

Look, up in the sky! It’s a bird, it’s a plane — it’s a Predator drone finding you because you wouldn’t give your neighbor his cows back after they wandered onto your property. Rodney Brossart, the farmer from North Dakota, was arrested after being located by Predator drone,  Forbes reports. Sentenced yesterday , he is the first American to be sent to the clink thanks to drone assistance. In June 2011,  Forbes reports , police attempted to arrest him because he wouldn’t return the three cows that had grazed onto his property. This resulted in “an armed standoff between Brossart, his three sons and a SWAT team” on his property. It ended only after the family of perps was located by a Predator drone borrowed from Customs and Border Patrol. Mr. Brossart tried to have the case dismissed on the grounds that there was no warrant for the drone surveillance, but a federal judge rejected his motion. Forbes points out that it’s disconcerting that drones created to protect Am

Spying on you? There's an app for that----NSA Used 'Angry Birds' to Spy on Users

This photo provided by The Guardian Newspaper in London shows Edward Snowden, who worked as a contract employee at the National Security Agency, on Sunday, June 9, 2013, in Hong Kong. Documents leaked by Snowden suggest that spy agencies have a powerful ally in the apps installed on smartphones across the globe. (AP Photo/The Guardian) LONDON • Documents leaked by former NSA contactor Edward Snowden suggest that spy agencies have a powerful ally in the apps installed on smartphones across the globe. The documents, published by The New York Times , the Guardian , and ProPublica , suggest that the mapping, gaming, and social networking apps which are a common feature of the world's estimated 1 billion smartphones can feed America's National Security Agency and Britain's GCHQ with huge amounts of personal data, including location information and details such as political affiliation or sexual orientation. The size and scope of the program aren't p

NESTOR MAKHNO brave heart of Ukraine.Bella Ciao.

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nestor_Makhno Autonomous Workers’ Union, Kiev: Statement on the Current Political Situation The laws which were passed on January 16th showed that the faction of the ruling class which now controls the government is ready to install a reactionary bourgeois dictatorship on the model of the Latin American regimes of the 1970s. The “dictatorship laws” criminalize any protest and limit the freedom of speech; also, they establish responsibility for “extremism”. Parliamentary mouthpieces of the class dictatorship of corrupted bureaucracy and monopolist bourgeoisie are the Party of Regions and the so called “Communist” Party of Ukraine which has long ago become a political force serving interests of capital. The Ukrainian repressive system leans on the police apparatus and street gangs of pro-government stormtroopers. Sometimes such paramilitary structures are commanded by retired police officers. Death squads are also in action. According to co

Spain: Villagers throw dead rats at each other in celebration

Dead rats fly through the air on the last Sunday of every January in the Spanish village of El Puig. The centuries old tradition known as the "Battle of the Rats" isn't for the squeamish, as villagers pelt each other with dead rats as part of a bizarre festival formerly known as 'Sant Pere'. The gruesome game originated from a time when rats would infest candy-filled pinatas during festivals, falling on the startled festival goers once they started smashing the pinata. They would then beat the rodents to death, and fling their corpses at fellow festival goers. To maintain the tradition, 19-year-old boys gather in the village square and celebrate by smashing a pinata full of sweets before throwing frozen rats at each other.

France: FEMEN gatecrash anti-Hollande protest

FEMEN launched another eye-catching attack on Sunday afternoon at Place de la Bastille in Paris. The female activists, who were dressed as shepherdesses, were protesting against the thousands marching through the capital against Francois Hollande and the ruling Socialist Party. According to FEMEN the protesters out on the streets were "extreme-right sheep" who belong to organisations like Printemps Français and Manif pour Tous. Riot police, who were out in force, immediately arrested and detained the self-proclaimed "sextremists."

Fast food workers fired on Facebook

Fast food preparation - Source: Breakfast Two young women have been fired on Facebook after new owners took over a Wellington fast food shop. Taryne Cullen, 20, worked at the Pita Pit in Featherston St for a year while a student at Victoria University. After being away for a knee operation, she tried to return to work this month, with the store under new management. She checked the roster, which was held on a private Facebook page. "When I saw my name wasn't on there, I contacted the new owners," she said. A few days later she was told - on Facebook - that there was no room for her. "They just said 'you don't have a job anymore'. I felt brushed aside, like I was no-one." Brooke Adams, 19, said she was fired with one day's notice after working for a year and eight months. She had also checked the in-store roster, and found her name was not on it. "They didn't even have the courtesy to tell me." Another woman, who did not want to be

Police arrest man in Japan tainted food scandal

Shizuo Kambayashi, File / AP Photo FILE - In this Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2014 file photo, the notice, left top, of apology and recall is placed on the shelves of frozen food products at a supermarket in Fujisawa, near Tokyo. Japanese police on Saturday, Jan. 25, 2014 arrested a factory worker at the subsidiary of Maruha Nichiro Holdings Inc. that churned out food laced with pesticide, which led to massive poisoning and a recall of more than 6 million packages of frozen food. As many as 2,800 people across Japan may have been sickened by the tainted food, including pizzas, croquettes and pancakes manufactured at the plant north of Tokyo. Japanese police on Saturday arrested a factory worker at a plant that churned out food laced with pesticide, which led to massive poisoning and a recall of more than 6 million packages of frozen food.Police identified the suspect as Toshiki Abe, 49, a worker at the subsidiary of Maruha Nichiro Holdings Inc., where the tainted foo

All relatives of the executed uncle of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un

All relatives of the executed uncle of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, including children and the country's ambassadors to Cuba and Malaysia, have also been put to death at the leader's instruction, Seoul's Yonhap news agency quoted multiple sources as saying Sunday. Jang Song-thaek, the once-powerful uncle, was executed last month on charges of attempting to overthrow the regime, including contemplating a military-backed coup. All direct relatives of Jang have also been executed, the sources said. "Extensive executions have been carried out for relatives of Jang Song-thaek," one source said on condition of anonymity. "All relatives of Jang have been put to death, including even children." The executed relatives include Jang's sister Jang Kye-sun, her husband and Ambassador to Cuba Jon Yong-jin, and Ambassador to Malaysia Jang Yong-chol, who is a nephew of Jang, as well as his two sons, the sources said. All of them were recalled to Pyongya

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Aaron Swartz - SOPA and The Day We Fight Back

Civil and digital rights activists are targeting February 11 as 'the day we fight back' against widespread state surveillance, using the life, work and words of Aaron Swartz as motivation. It's over a year now since Aaron Swartz took his own life while being prosecuted for the alleged theft of millions of documents from MIT and JSTOR. The 26 year old had given a considerable amount of his time to digital rights and confronting government attempts to infringe too heavily on the free and open Internet. Swartz gained a lot of respect from his efforts against the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), which was shelved after a global protest against its proposed measures to tackle Internet piracy. His life and work are now the subject of an upcoming documentary called, "The Internet's Own Boy." Now, just after the anniversary of his untimely death, Internet activists are fired up to make the next month count, and culminate it with an Internet-wide protest on February