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Saturday 21 March 2015

Justice Department Rolls Out An Early Form Of Capital Controls In America



Something stunning took place earlier this week, and it quietly snuck by, unnoticed by anyone as the "all important" FOMC meeting was looming. That something could have been taken straight out of the playbook of either Cyprus, or Greece, or the USSR "evil empire", or all three.


This is how the WSJ explained it:



The U.S. Justice Department’s criminal head said banks may need to go beyond filing suspicious activity reports when they encounter a risky customer.


“The vast majority of financial institutions file suspicious activity reports when they suspect that an account is connected to nefarious activity,” said assistant attorney general Leslie Caldwell in a Monday speech, according to prepared remarks. “But, in appropriate cases, we encourage those institutions to consider whether to take more action: specifically, to alert law enforcement authorities about the problem.”



The remarks indicate that banks may be expected to do more than just file SARs, a responsibility that itself can be expensive and time-consuming.


Some banks already have close relationships with law enforcement, said Kevin Rosenberg, chair of Goldberg Lowenstein & Weatherwax LLP’s government investigation and white collar litigation group. Ms. Caldwell’s remarks “speak to moving forward in a more collaborative way,” said Mr. Rosenberg.


A tip-off from a bank about a suspicious customer could lead law enforcement to seize funds or start an investigation, Ms. Caldwell said.



What does this mean, and why is it so critical? Simon Black of International Man explains:


* * *


Justice Department rolls out an early form of capital controls in America


Imagine going to the bank to withdraw some cash.


Having some cash on hand is always a prudent strategy, and especially today when more and more bank deposits are creeping into negative territory, meaning that you have to pay the banks for the privilege that they gamble with your money.


You tell the teller that you’d like to withdraw $5,000 from your account. She hesitates nervously and wants to know why.


You try to politely let her know that that’s none of the bank’s business as it’s your money.


The teller disappears for a few minutes, leaving you waiting.


When she returns she tells you that you can collect your money in a few days as they don’t have it on hand at the moment.


Slightly irritated because of the inconvenience, you head home.


But as you pull into your driveway later there’s an unexpected surprise waiting for you: two police officers would like to have a word with you about your intended withdrawal earlier…


If this sounds far-fetched, think again. Because it could very well become a reality in the Land of the Free if the Justice Department gets its way.


Earlier this week, a senior official from the Justice Department spoke to a group of bankers about the need for them to rat out their customers to the police.


What a lot of people don’t realize is that banks are already unpaid government spies.


Federal regulations in the Land of the Free REQUIRE banks to file ‘suspicious activity reports’ or SARs on their customers. And it’s not optional.


Banks have minimum quotas of SARs they need to fill out and submit to the federal government.


If they don’t file enough SARs, they can be fined. They can lose their banking charter. And yes, bank executives and directors can even be imprisoned for noncompliance.


This is the nature of the financial system in the Land of the Free.


And chances are, your banker has filled one out on you—they submitted 1.6 MILLION SARs in 2013 alone.


But now the Justice Department is saying that SARs aren’t enough.


Now, whenever banks suspect something ‘suspicious’ is going on, they want them to pick up the phone and call the cops:


“[W]e encourage those institutions to consider whether to take more action: specifically, to alert law enforcement authorities about the problem, who may be able to seize the funds, initiate an investigation, or take other proactive steps.”


So what exactly constitutes ‘suspicious activity’? Basically anything.


According to the handbook for the Federal Financial Institution Examination Council, banks are required to file a SAR with respect to:


“Transactions conducted or attempted by, at, or through the bank (or an affiliate) and aggregating $5,000 or more…”


It’s utterly obscene. According to the Justice Department, going to the bank and withdrawing $5,000 should potentially prompt a banker to rat you out to the police.


This may be a very early form of capital controls in the Land of the Free. This is the subject of today’s Podcast. You can listen in here.







Power naps do work: Increase memory retention

Power nap

A team of researchers at Saarland University headed by Professor Axel Mecklinger have shown that a short nap lasting about an hour can significantly improve memory performance. The study, which was coordinated by graduate research student Sara Studte, involved examination of memory recall in 41 participants. The volunteers had to learn single words and word pairs. Once the learning phase was over, the participants were tested to determine how much information they could remember. About half of the participants were then allowed to sleep, while the others watched a DVD. After that, the participants were re-tested and those who had taken a nap were shown to have retained substantially more word pairs in memory than the participants in the control group who had watched a DVD.

The results of the study have been published in the journal


Generations of school students have gone to bed the night before a maths exam or a vocabulary test with their algebra book or vocabulary notes tucked under their pillow in the hope that the knowledge would somehow be magically transferred into their brains while they slept. That they were not completely taken in by a superstitious belief has now been demonstrated by a team of neuropsychologists at Saarland University, who have shown that even a brief sleep can significantly improve retention of learned material in memory.


Sara Studte, a graduate biologist specializing in neuropsychology, working with her PhD supervisor Axel Mecklinger and co-researcher Emma Bridger, is examining how power naps influence memory performance. The results are clear: 'Even a short sleep lasting 45 to 60 minutes produces a five-fold improvement in information retrieval from memory,' explains Axel Mecklinger.


Strictly speaking, memory performance did not improve in the nap group relative to the levels measured immediately after the learning phase, but they did remain constant. 'The control group, whose members watched DVDs while the other group slept, performed significantly worse than the nap group when it came to remembering the word pairs. The memory performance of the participants who had a power nap was just as good as it was before sleeping, that is, immediately after completing the learning phase, says Professor Mecklinger.


The researchers were particularly focused on the role of the hippocampus -- a region of the brain in which memories are 'consolidated' -- the process by which previously learned information is transferred into long-term memory storage. 'We examined a particular type of brain activity, known as "sleep spindles," that plays an important role in memory consolidation during sleep,' explains Sara Studte. A sleep spindle is a short burst of rapid oscillations in the electroencephalogram (EEG). 'We suspect that certain types of memory content, particularly information that was previously tagged, is preferentially consolidated during this type of brain activity,' says Mecklinger. Newly learned information is effectively given a label, making it easier to recall that information at some later time. In short, a person's memory of something is stronger, the greater the number of sleep spindles appearing in the EEG.


In order to exclude the possibility that the participants only recall the learned items due to a feeling of familiarity, the researchers used the following trick: the test subjects were required to learn not only 90 single words, but also 120 word pairs, where the word pairs were essentially meaningless. Axel Mecklinger explains the method: 'A word pair might, for example, be "milk-taxi." Familiarity is of no use here when participants try to remember this word pair, because they have never heard this particular word combination before and it is essentially without meaning. They therefore need to access the specific memory of the corresponding episode in the hippocampus.'


The research teams draws a clear conclusion from its study: 'A short nap at the office or in school is enough to significantly improve learning success. Wherever people are in a learning environment, we should think seriously about the positive effects of sleep,' says Axel Mecklinger. Enhancing information recall through sleeping doesn't require us to stuff bulky tomes under our pillow. A concentrated period of learning followed by a short relaxing sleep is all that's needed.


Journal Reference:



  1. Sara Studte, Emma Bridger, Axel Mecklinger. Nap sleep preserves associative but not item memory performance. , 2015; 120: 84 DOI: 10.1016/j.nlm.2015.02.012


The black budget: What does it mean to US Federal budget, the economy and you?


Are financial fraud and market manipulations actually mechanisms for financing the black budget and centralized governance necessitated by high-tech secrecy?

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Spring arrives with wintry weather in east as celestial events punctuate the week

To start the week, two large eruptions from the sun's corona occurred Sunday, which sparked a powerful solar storm.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released a statement Tuesday warning that the geomagnetic storm could potentially impact power grids and GPS tracking.


The geomagnetic storm that resulted allowed the aurora borealis and aurora australis to ignite, providing stargazers with a spectacular light show.


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With skies clear to partly cloudy across much of the Great Lakes region and Northeast, viewing the aurora was possible in parts of Wisconsin, Michigan, New York state and across portions of New England, AccuWeather.com Senior Meteorologist Dave Dombek said Tuesday.

Meanwhile, the temperature roller coaster continued in the Northeast with winter and spring battling it out. Following a brief early week warmup, with temperatures climbing into the 50s and 60s across the region, colder air returned by midweek.


In Boston, the winter snowfall went down in the record books this week.


Breaking the 1995-1996 record of 107.6 inches, Boston Logan International Airport received a colossal 108.6 inches of snow this season following snow through Sunday.


A storm spread snow and a wintry mix back into the mid-Atlantic and Northeast on the first day of spring, Friday.


In the Ohio Valley and Mississippi Valley, winter lessened amid warmer weather, but flooding from snowmelt and rivers swelling caused problems throughout the week.


This influx of rainwater paired with melting snow has caused ice jams, resulting in road closures and putting lives and property at risk.


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The Ohio River crested in Cincinnati at its highest level since 1997 on Sunday. At least five homes have been flooded in the town of New Richmond, located southeast of Cincinnati, according to the Associated Press.

The lower Mississippi River will be on the rise as runoff from its swollen tributaries, including the Ohio River, drains downstream, said AccuWeather.com Senior Meteorologist Kristina Pydynowski.


While chilly air intruded in parts of the East this week, temperatures continued to soar across Southern California, breaking records for the month.


Downtown Los Angeles hit 90 F on Monday, making it the fourth day in a row temperatures in the city soared to 90 F or higher.


From late last week into the early portion of this week, record highs were set for each day in the region, but temperatures of 90 F or higher occurring consecutively in a four-day span has never been recorded for the month of March, AccuWeather.com Western Weather Expert Ken Clark said.


On Friday, March 20, the vernal equinox marks the first day of spring.


However, for 2015, the spring equinox transpired amidst two other celestial events: a total solar eclipse [for some areas] and a new supermoon.


Terryland Castle

© Matheus Muñoz

Terryland Castle in Galway, Ireland, made for an ideal setting to capture the eclipse.



While the total solar eclipse was visible only from areas of the northern Atlantic Ocean, a replay of the event broadcast by a Slooh.com expedition can be watched here.

"Nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing, in nature is as powerful and spectacular as the totality of a solar eclipse," Slooh Astronomer Bob Berman said.


"Sadly, they only happen every 360 years on average for any given location, which means that a very low percentage of the population has ever seen one."


Cheap US wine brands in lawsuit over claims of toxic arsenic levels

Cheap Wine

© The Independent, UK

Low-priced wine could cause cancer and heart disease, according to plaintiffs.



Budget-friendly wine brands could contain dangerously toxic levels of arsenic - increasing the risk of cancer and heart disease.

More than two dozen American vintners are facing a lawsuit claiming their wines contain a poisonous amount of the known carcinogen.


According to the proposed class action, filed on Thursday in Los Angeles, levels of arsenic within the Californian brands are up to five times higher than what the Environmental Protection Agency allows for water.


The lawsuit names numerous low-priced wines, including popular brands such as Franzia, Mogen David, Almaden, Sutter Home and Wine Cube.


It says tests by three independent laboratories found arsenic levels that in some cases were 500 per cent higher than what's considered safe.


But the industry group Wine Institute dismissed the allegations as false and misleading.


The complaint was filed on behalf of three San Diego residents and a Los Angeles man.


Arsenic occurs naturally in the air, soil and water but in larger amounts, it can be deadly.


The plaintiffs - named in the suit as Doris Charles, Alvin Jones, Jason Peltier and Jennifer Peltier - say when consumed in excess over time can cause cancer, cardiovascular disease, respiratory illness and other health problems.


The wines are primarily white and blush varieties of Moscato, Pinot Grigio and Sauvignon Blanc, which all retail for less than $10.


According to the complaint, the plaintiffs are seeking a recall on all the wines with high arsenic levels, whether voluntarily or through a court order, money back to the consumers who purchased these wines and a broader goal to shed light on a minimally regulated industry.


The total damages sought are not specified in the complaint.


The Ronin Institute for wayward academics


© Ronin Institute



What were once quiet concerns whispered among peers at American universities have become a steady drumbeat of angst ringing out across the proverbial quad. Everyone, it seems, is aware of the woeful state of the academic job market for newly minted PhDs. Graduate students who've dedicated five, even seven, years of their lives in training for their chosen fields—even at top universities—often face a stark absence of professorial prospects. A fresh-faced PhD in, say, history, biology, or the classics might get only a couple of job interviews, even zero, never mind an actual job offer in academia.

Without a university position in hand, these highly educated would-be professors generally have two options: bounce from one part-time teaching job to another or take a job doing something else entirely. And while some—those with engineering and science doctorates, mostly—have the option of well-paid work in the private sector, others do not, and admit to feeling shame and frustration that they didn't make it in academia. At conferences and in the higher-education press, they bemoan a broken system: one that generates experts with training they cannot use without that all-important title of professor.


What if there was an alternative? The Ronin Institute, a three-month-old experiment founded by one of these would-be academics, is asking that question, hoping to revolutionize academia by connecting unaffiliated scholars to research funding and giving them credibility at the same time—no university required.


"We want to change that perception," said Jon F. Wilkins, the institute's founder. "If you're a physicist and you're not at a university, but you're an engineer, or you're doing physics, or actively pursuing your field of study, you should feel like as much of a scholar, or a physicist, as someone who is doing so as a professor somewhere."


Wilkins, who earned a doctorate in biophysics from Harvard University in 2002, focuses on theoretical evolutionary biology, trying to understand, among other things, how and why our genes dictate behavior. But a few years ago, this 41-year-old academic without a tenure-track job began pondering a different issue: the unharnessed brainpower of the highly educated underemployed. He wrote about it on his personal blog, galvanizing support among his peers. And a few months ago, from his home in Montclair, N.J., Wilkins decided to do something about it, launching the Ronin Institute.


The goal, Wilkins says, isn't just offering up a short-term solution to the current scarcity of academic jobs. It's suggesting a new system altogether, named for ronin—the samurai who broke with the code of feudal Japan, refusing to commit suicide upon the deaths of their masters. "The analogy is, if you're not employed by a university and you're an academic, you're supposed to say, 'Well, I'm not an academic anymore.' You're supposed to sort of commit professional suicide at that point," Wilkins said. "And what we're saying is, 'You know what? No, we can do this. We don't need a master.'"


"We want to change that perception," said Jon F. Wilkins, the institute's founder. "If you're a physicist and you're not at a university, but you're an engineer, or you're doing physics, or actively pursuing your field of study, you should feel like as much of a scholar, or a physicist, as someone who is doing so as a professor somewhere."


Wilkins, who earned a doctorate in biophysics from Harvard University in 2002, focuses on theoretical evolutionary biology, trying to understand, among other things, how and why our genes dictate behavior. But a few years ago, this 41-year-old academic without a tenure-track job began pondering a different issue: the unharnessed brainpower of the highly educated underemployed. He wrote about it on his personal blog, galvanizing support among his peers. And a few months ago, from his home in Montclair, N.J., Wilkins decided to do something about it, launching the Ronin Institute.


The goal, Wilkins says, isn't just offering up a short-term solution to the current scarcity of academic jobs. It's suggesting a new system altogether, named for ronin—the samurai who broke with the code of feudal Japan, refusing to commit suicide upon the deaths of their masters. "The analogy is, if you're not employed by a university and you're an academic, you're supposed to say, 'Well, I'm not an academic anymore.' You're supposed to sort of commit professional suicide at that point," Wilkins said. "And what we're saying is, 'You know what? No, we can do this. We don't need a master.'"


The academic job market for many post-docs is bleak. While the number of people obtaining PhDs has been rising—between 2000 and 2010, doctoral degree production increased in most every field, according to the Council of Graduate Schools—the percentage of professors holding traditional tenure- track jobs has been shrinking. An analysis of federal employment data, conducted by the American Association of University Professors, found that the percentage of college instructors holding such jobs is nearly half what it was 1975, with the slack taken up by adjuncts who receive no benefits and little job security, and are paid, often at low rates, per course. These trends have flooded the marketplace with scholars who have flagging hopes of landing stable, long-term academic jobs.


Many, of course, find work in other industries. And comparatively speaking, few holders of doctoral degrees will go totally unemployed. But many end up in jobs for which they are untrained, or over-trained. The Center for College Affordability and Productivity, a nonpartisan think tank that has been critical of the rising cost of a college education, estimates that in 2008 16 percent of those holding doctoral or professional degrees, such as law degrees, were working in jobs that required less than a bachelor's degree.


But the issue isn't just a lack of jobs for would-be academics. To do research, young scholars usually need to find full-time academic jobs. By training more people than it can employ, the current system leaves untapped brainpower languishing.


In a white paper published this month by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, Wilkins and coauthor Samuel Arbesman, a senior scholar at the foundation, are suggesting an alternative. Academics, they argue, need not be professors with experiences "steeped within the ivory tower." They can be "fractional scholars"—a term they coined—pursuing their interests on their own, outside of academia. "Many, many PhDs have the ability to do it," said Arbesman, who has also written for Ideas. There's just one issue. "Within the current culture," he said, "you need some sort of institutional affiliation."


That's where Wilkins and his nascent institute come in. Since obtaining his doctorate a decade ago, Wilkins has held a series of research posts, first as a junior fellow in the Harvard Society of Fellows and then as a professor at the Santa Fe Institute, a small interdisciplinary research group.


He was applying for jobs last year, he said, and not having much luck, when he got a break: His wife, a writer, landed a book deal. The book contract, along with a grant Wilkins already had, suddenly gave him a window of opportunity to launch the institute he had been considering.


Wilkins incorporated the Ronin Institute in February, attracted several scholars to sign on, and has begun seeking grant money for an idea that he believes is long overdue—not just for academics in the social sciences and the humanities, but even for science-minded scholars like himself. "I'm a theoretical evolutionary biologist," he said. "What I need is a pad of paper and a laptop."


He hopes the institute will help connect similarly minded people to the funding they need by supporting grant applications and, at times, perhaps even disseminating small amounts of money to researchers. "Say you left academia and you took a few years off to have kids and now you want to get back into it," Wilkins said. "Well, one of the things you need to start doing is, you need to start going to the meetings, getting reintroduced to people."


Wilkins wants to be able to fund such trips—as well as small research projects. And to do that, he'll be asking for funding from foundations, philanthropists, and other donors. The institute's overhead is low; Wilkins plans to keep it a virtual entity for the foreseeable future, which will free up more money for the researchers themselves. Still, it won't be an easy task. To make it work, Wilkins said, the institute is hoping to raise enough money to have a working budget of tens of thousands of dollars. And then there is the prickly matter of selecting the independent scholars. Wilkins doesn't plan to take all comers; he simply can't.


"The danger of something like this," he said, "is that it could easily be a magnet for crackpots—people out there not working at universities and it's not because of lifestyle. It's because they're just crazy or not very good."


Wilkins isn't the only one rethinking the status quo. Last year, while researching the glut of PhDs in the marketplace, the journal Nature examined several potential solutions to the problem, including training PhDs on how to succeed in the private sector (some have little experience working in teams) or focusing less on dated definitions of what counts as success in their fields. (One new buzzword, pointed out, is "transdisciplinary.") And a handful of institutes, such as Santa Fe where Wilkins worked until recently, have set up outside university walls to create small research clusters around specific topics.


The challenge for Wilkins, going forward, will be part fund-raising and part changing the perception that serious researchers must be university professors. Ralph Haygood, one of the independent scholars who's supporting Wilkins, believes the latter won't be easy.


"If someone is a tenured faculty member at a university, it is a reasonable supposition that they know what they're talking about," said Haygood, who earned a doctorate in population biology from University of California, Davis, but stopped applying for academic jobs five years ago, he said, in order to start his own business. "And so, anytime anybody comes along and wants to talk about doing science outside academia, there is a certain amount of wariness."


The key to overcoming that, Haygood said, is attracting credible people, whose work has been published in respected journals, to the institute. And the other key, according to Wilkins, is making clear that they aren't trying to replace traditional academic institutions but to complement them, while helping people like Kristina Killgrove.


Killgrove, 35, earned a doctorate in anthropology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2010. Her focus is studying human skeletal remains. Her most recent research analyzed the remains of commoners who lived in Rome during the Roman Empire—heady, interesting stuff that, she said, helped her land an adjunct professor position last fall at Vanderbilt University.


But the job did not last. Within a few months, Killgrove, her husband, and young daughter were back in North Carolina. And though she is still hoping to find a full-time faculty job this spring, Killgrove is hedging her bets. Like Haygood, she has signed on with the Ronin Institute.


She believes in the premise, she said. And she knows the money is out there. Last year, Killgrove said, she used the Internet to raise $10,000 to finance her latest project. And if she doesn't get that full-time faculty position, she hopes the institute might help her in at least one small way this year: raising money to send her to professional conferences. "I do that out of pocket," she said, "because I want to tell people about my research."


Oops! Ukrainian 'security' forces blindfold, handcuff, detain OSCE monitor

osce ukraine

© RIA Novosti / Sergey Averin

An OSCE representative checks on the presence of heavy artillery in the place of its deployment in the village of Ulyanovskoye, Amvrosiyevsky District, Donetsk Region.



Ukrainian Security Services "agents" have detained, blindfolded and handcuffed an OSCE monitor in the Kiev-controlled city of Kramatorsk in eastern Ukraine. Having found out his identity, the three men in balaclavas released the monitor "with apologies."

The OSCE Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) in its daily report confirmed that as soon as one of its members disembarked the train in Kramatorsk on Thursday, he was immediately apprehended by men in civilian clothes wearing sky-masks.


"An SMM monitor was approached by three men in civilian clothes, two of them wearing balaclavas and holstered weapons. The monitor was handcuffed and hooded before being asked to identify himself," the report says.


The organization does not provide any details as to how long the monitor was held handcuffed or how the person was treated. OSCE notes, however, that once the identity was established, "he was released with apologies."


"The men identified themselves as members of the State Security Services of Ukraine (SBU)," the mission revealed.


Meanwhile, the March 19 report mentions a number of violations of the fragile ceasefire on both sides - the Ukrainian army and the Donetsk and Lugansk People Republic (DPR and LPR) forces.


For instance, some five kilometers west of DPR controlled Shyrokyne village, for two hours the observers witnessed "three Ukrainian Armed Forces tanks firing approximately 90 tank rounds at 'DPR'-held positions." In return the SMM heard "30 incoming tank rounds impacting close to Ukrainian Armed Forces positions" as well as mortar shells.


Overall, OSCE representatives were stopped at two separate Ukrainian Armed Forces checkpoints near Volnovakha and prevented from accessing their surveillance drone launching site. In the LPR-controlled Stakhanov SMM monitor was delayed at a checkpoint for 20 minutes and refused entry to a repair facility.


The report concludes that the security situation in Donbas remains "fluid and unpredictable and the ceasefire does not hold everywhere."


The OSCE is currently employing 460 monitors from 42 countries across ten cities in Ukraine, including 350 in the Donetsk and Lugansk regions. The mission observes the implementation of the Minsk agreement that envisages a ceasefire and withdrawal of heavy weapons followed by a political dialogues between the sides to resolve the crisis.


Kiev however did not make an attempt to even start dialogue with the self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Lugansk.


"Immediately after the withdrawal of heavy weapons, a dialogue on the modalities of the election in the respective regions of Donetsk and Lugansk was supposed to begin," Russia's FM Sergey Lavrov said. "The modality of the elections, in line with the Minsk agreements, must be in accord with Donetsk and Lugansk. Nobody even tried to do it."


Instead of introducing a special order of government in Donbass until the elections are held there in accordance with Ukrainian laws, Kiev declared them to be temporarily occupied territories.


Meanwhile Russian President, Vladimir Putin after a meeting with the leaders of Belarus and Kazakhstan on Friday expressed hopes that Kiev will strictly adhere to the Minsk Accords. "We do expect that the authorities in Kiev will fully comply with the Minsk Accords," Putin said according to TASS.


Running on autopilot: Tesla will launch software to power driverless cars

Tesla car

© Reuters / Stephen Lam



Seeing a Tesla is about to get a lot more wild, as the company is preparing to install its self-driving software in the Model S fleet. The autopilot feature will only work on highways... as the technology may not yet be legal in the US.

Tesla will roll out an auto-steering software update for the Model S in the next three or four months, and owners won't even have to go into a Tesla store for the upgrade, founder Elon Musk said at a Thursday press conference.


Drivers will only be able to engage the autonomous system while on highways, despite having the technical ability to do a lot more.


Musk said. he continued, noting that such streets often lack posted speed limit signs and pose obstacles like children playing in the street.


the Tesla founder added.


The company has been testing the software mainly between San Francisco and Seattle.


Musk said. We're now almost able to travel all the way from San Francisco to Seattle without the driver touching any controls at all."


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Engadget pointed out that the electric car's new technology is not a huge leap from current automobile abilities.

the tech site wrote.


But the update may be ahead of the law when it comes to self-driving cars, experts warn. Only four states (California, Florida, Michigan and Nevada) allow for driverless cars.


Washington, DC announced new rules at the beginning of April 2014 that would make it the first jurisdiction to license self-driving car operators (rather than just testers). And the federal government has authorized only a handful of test locations for where vehicles use technology to communicate with other similarly equipped vehicles that alert drivers to potentially dangerous situations.


Karl Brauer, an analyst with Kelley Blue Book, told the New York Times


he added.


A spokesman for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration told the Times in January that and that the agency


Alexis Georgeson, a spokesman for Tesla, told the Times that there was


Georgeson said the system was designed to be used by an alert driver. she said.


[embedded content]




The driverless car technology also raises the question of liability in an accident, which may need to be decided by the courts, rather than by legislation.

If it's fully autonomous, who's responsible if there's a mistake? The driver or the company who made it?" Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond, told the Times.


Before the autopilot technology arrives, Tesla is pushing a software update in the next two weeks ‒ Version 6.2 ‒ that is designed to reduce or fear of running out of juice while on the road.


tesla coverage

© Tesla Motors



The upcoming update, called Range Assurance, will connect the Model S with the network of Tesla Superchargers and destination chargers, discarding those that are in heavy use or are inactive. The technology will also warn drivers before they drive out of range, the company said in a blog post.

Version 7.0 ‒ with the autopilot mode ‒ will have a complete overhaul of its user interface, the Tesla founder told reporters.


Musk noted,


People will be able to summon an unmanned Model S to their location, an ability that the billionaire said will be restricted to private property until the law catches up with the technology.


Mom takes away iPhone, 12 year old daughter tries to poison her -- twice

phone

© shutterstock



Police on Friday arrested a 12-year-old Colorado girl accused of trying to kill her mother twice by poisoning her with bleach for taking away her iPhone, authorities said.

Boulder County Sheriff's Commander Heidi Prentup said in a statement that the mother drank the caustic fluid on one of the two attempts, which both happened within a week this month.


On March 2, the girl poured bleach into a breakfast smoothie that she had prepared for her mother, Prentup said.


"Mom noticed an odor of bleach in the drink and thought her daughter had cleaned the glass prior to making the beverage and did not rinse all the bleach out," the police statement said.


The woman, who was not named by the authorities, was treated at a local hospital and released.


Four days later, the girl allegedly poured bleach into a water carafe her mother kept in her bedroom. When the woman smelt bleach, she became suspicious and confronted her daughter.


"This is when she learned her daughter had developed the plan to kill her for taking away her iPhone," police said.


Prentup said the mother reported the girl to police, and that investigators then gathered enough evidence to take her into custody.


The girl was taken to a juvenile detention facility on Friday where is being held pending the filing of charges.


: Reuters


Surveillance is Security: Big Brother unleashes the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act

big brother

© unknown



Nothing you write, say, text, tweet or share via phone or computer is private anymore.

This is the new normal in America today.


A process which started shortly after 9/11 has grown into a full-fledged campaign of warrantless surveillance, electronic tracking and data mining, carried out by federal agents who have been given access to the vast majority of electronic communications in America. Their methods completely undermine constitution safeguards, and yet no federal agency, president, court or legislature has stepped up to halt this assault on our rights.


In fact, Congress, the courts, and the president (starting with George W. Bush and expanding exponentially under Barack Obama) have actively helped to erect this electronic concentration camp in which we are now imprisoned.


A good case in point is the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA), formerly known as CISPA (Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act). Sold to the public as necessary for protecting us against cyber attacks or internet threats such as hacking, this Orwellian exercise in tyranny-masquerading-as-security actually makes it easier for the government to spy on Americans, while officially turning Big Business into a government snitch.


Be warned: this cybersecurity bill is little more than a wolf in sheep's clothing or, as longtime critic Senator Ron Wyden labeled it, "a surveillance bill by another name."


Lacking any significant privacy protections, CISA, which sacrifices privacy without improving security, will do for surveillance what the Patriot Act did for the government's police powers: it will expand, authorize and normalize the government's intrusions into the most intimate aspects of our lives to such an extent that there will be no turning back. In other words, it will ensure that the Fourth Amendment, which protects us against unfounded, warrantless government surveillance, does not apply to the Internet or digital/electronic communications of any kind.


In a nutshell, CISA would make it legal for the government to spy on the citizenry without their knowledge and without a warrant under the guise of fighting cyberterrorism. It would also protect private companies from being sued for sharing your information with the government, namely the National Security Agency (NSA) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), in order to prevent "terrorism" or an "imminent threat of death or serious bodily harm."


Law enforcement agencies would also be given broad authority to sift through one's data for any possible crimes. What this means is that you don't even have to be suspected of a crime to be under surveillance. The bar is set so low as to allow government officials to embark on a fishing expedition into your personal affairs—emails, phone calls, text messages, purchases, banking transactions, etc.—based only on their need to find and fight "crime."


Take this anything-goes attitude towards government surveillance, combine it with Big Business' complicity over the government's blatantly illegal acts, the ongoing trend towards overcriminalization, in which minor acts are treated as major crimes, and the rise of private prisons, which have created a profit motive for jailing Americans, and you have all the makings of a fascist police state.


So who can we count on to protect us from the threat of government surveillance?


It won't be the courts. Not in an age of secret courts, secret court rulings, and an overall deference by the courts to anything the government claims is necessary to its fight against terrorism.


It won't be Congress, either (CISA is their handiwork, remember), which has failed to do anything to protect the citizenry from an overbearing police state, all the while enabling the government to continue its power grabs. It was Congress that started us down this whole Big Brother road with its passage and subsequent renewals of the USA Patriot Act, which drove a stake through the heart of the Bill of Rights.


And it certainly won't be the president. Indeed, President Obama recently issued an executive order calling on private companies (phone companies, banks, Internet providers, you name it) to share their customer data ( personal data) with each other and, most importantly, the government. Here's the problem, however: while Obama calls for vague protections for privacy and civil liberties without providing any specific recommendations, he appoints the DHS to oversee the information sharing and develop guidelines with the attorney general for how the government will collect and share the data.


Talk about putting the wolf in charge of the hen house.


Mind you, this is the same agency that is responsible for militarizing the police, weaponizing SWAT teams, spying on activists, stockpiling ammunition, distributing license plate readers to state police, carrying out military drills in American cities, establishing widespread surveillance networks through the use of fusion centers, funding city-wide surveillance systems, accelerating the domestic use of drones, and generally establishing itself as the nation's standing army, i.e., a national police force .


This brings me back to the knotty problem of how to protect Americans from cyber attacks without further eroding our privacy rights. As I point out in my book there are three camps of where to draw the line.


In the first camp are those who trust the government to do the right thing. To this group, CISA is simply a desperately needed blueprint for safeguarding us against a possible cyberattack. The problem is that CISA is a "privacy nightmare" that "stomps all over civil liberties" without making "the country any safer against cyberattacks."


In the second camp are those who not only don't trust the government but think the government is out to get them. Sadly, they've got good reason to distrust the government, especially when it comes to abusing its powers and violating our rights. To those in this second group, surveillance is here to stay, which means the government will continue to monitor, regulate and control all means of communications.


Then there's the third camp, which neither sees government as an angel or a devil, but merely as an entity that needs to be controlled and bound "down from mischief with the chains of the Constitution." To these few, the only way to ensure balance in government is by holding government officials accountable to abiding by the rule of law.


Unfortunately, with all branches of the government stridently working to maintain its acquired powers, and the private sector marching in lockstep, there seems to be little to protect the American people from the fast-growing electronic surveillance state. In the meantime, surveillance has become the new normal, and the effects of this endless surveillance are resulting in a more anxious and submissive citizenry.


IMF worried yet? Switzerland and Luxembourg apply for China-led AIIB

China's Finance Minister Lou Jiwei

© Reuters / Kim Kyung-Hoo

China's Finance Minister Lou Jiwei



Despite negative noises from the US, Switzerland and Luxembourg have become the latest European nations to apply to join the Beijing-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), the Chinese Finance Ministry announced.

Earlier in March, the EU's leading economies - the UK, France and Germany - announced plans to participate in the new international financial institution.


China's Finance Ministry released a statement on Friday saying it welcomes the Swiss decision to apply.


Switzerland is to become the bank's founding member later this month if other nation members involved approve its candidacy.


The ministry released a separate statement on March 20, saying Luxembourg also wants to join the China-led project.


The AIIB has already gathered together 27 "prospective" founding members, Chinese Finance Minister Lou Jiwei told the local news agency.


The application deadline for membership is March 31, with China planning for the AIIB to become operational before the end of 2015.


According to Lou, other nations will still be able to join the AIIB after the deadline expires, but only as common members.


The institution is expected to boast an initial subscribed capital of $50 billion and focus on supporting infrastructure projects across Asia.


Head of the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD), Angel Gurria, praised the European states for their participation in the bank.


"The fact that some of the European countries are now associating with the project makes me even more convinced that it is going to be run in a very professional, transparent way," Gurria is cited as saying by .


However, US officials have been skeptical, expressing fears that it may undermine the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).


US Treasury Secretary, Jacob Lew, stressed Washington has doubts if the China-led bank will be able to "adhere to the kind of high standards that the international financial institutions have developed."


"Will it protect the rights of workers, the environment, will it deal with corruption issues appropriately?" Lew asked.




But the Chinese finance minister gave an assurance that the AIIB will not compete with existing international organizations.

"History revisited, the establishment of regional investment banks including the ADB (Asian Development Bank) and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development did not weaken established (institutions), rather they reinforced the multilateral financial organizations and more vigorously pushed forward the global economy," Lou stressed.


According to the minister, China will remain an important member of the World Bank and the ADB, continuing to support their efforts towards global poverty relief and development.


North Carolina to mandate polio vaccines, removes religious exemptions

Vaccines

© PreventDisease.com



Several states are beginning to move forward against religious exemptions for vaccines. In the case of Polio, the vaccine is especially dangerous, having been linked to tens of thousands of adverse health consequences including paralysis and death. So North Carolina wants to mandate it? Kenny Valenzuela explains the ramifications of SB346 set to be fast tracked for August, 2015...

[embedded content]


New Orleans TSA agents attacked by machete-wielding man


© Reuters / Jonathan Bachman



A man allegedly used a can of wasp spray against a TSA agent in New Orleans before pulling out a machete and stabbing another agent at the Louis Armstrong International Airport near New Orleans, Louisiana, according to local media.

Police are currently investigating the incident and officials said the airport has now been secured. It appears that two Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents were injured in an attack at a security checkpoint and that the man responsible for the violence has been killed. The assailant has been transported to a hospital but is not responding, WVUE reported.


The conditions of the TSA agents have not been confirmed.


According to images and accounts from the scene posted on social media, a TSA agent was stabbed by the attacker. Photographs show a cold weapon on the ground that looks like a machete.




"There was a security incident in the area near concourse B of the airport terminal The site has been secured. We will release further information as it comes available," Airport spokeswoman Michelle Wilcut said in an email to News.

Jefferson Parish Sheriff Newell Normand told that a man identified as Richard White was responsible for the violence. He allegedly used a can of wasp spray on a TSA agent who confronted him at a checkpoint, then took out a machete and struck another agent.


Police then shot the man responsible in the face and the chest, he said.


An image from Twitter reportedly shows one agent being treated.




In a statement, Mayor Mitch Landrieu said the situation "is under control and the airport is secure."

"There is no threat to the public at this time, and the airport is returning to normal operations. We expect Concourse B - where the incident occurred - to fully reopen tomorrow."








French coast hit with biggest 'tide of the century'


© AFP 2015/ PHILIPPE HUGUEN



After the excitement of Friday's solar eclipse, thousands of visitors have flocked to France's coastal areas for the chance to see the biggest tide in 18 years.

Thousands of visitors made their way to coastal areas in Brittany and Normandy on Saturday morning to catch this year's spring tides, which are billed to rise as high as 14 meters above their usual level following Friday's solar eclipse, which saw the Earth, moon, and sun in alignment.


Referred to as the 'tide of the century' in the French press, the phenomenon actually takes place every 18 years; this week's is the first of this millennium, and follows exceptionally high tides seen on March 10, 1997.


The picturesque 11th century fortified island of Mont Saint-Michel in Normandy, which is usually buffeted by high tides, was a popular destination, with ten thousand people going to see the UNESCO-listed monastery surrounded by rising water before the tide receded from sight, exposing areas of beach and rock which will next be visible in 2033.


On Friday the tidal coefficient, which ranges from 20 to 120 and measures the height between consecutive high and low tides, was recorded at 118 on Brittany's Atlantic Coast, and reached 119 on Saturday, the joint highest ever recorded. The super high tide is also expected to affect coastlines along the North Sea, the English Channel and to a lesser extent, the Mediterranean.


9 Spectacular Archaeological Finds Not Found In History Books



Some of the most intriguing archaeological finds in history are rarely mentioned in history books. For instance, have a look at the following amazing discoveries.



1. L'Anse Aux Meadows



This ancient settlement is believed to have been built by the Vikings and it could support up to 160 people. What's incredible is that it was built 500 years before Columbus “discovered” North America!



2. Saksaywaman



This fortress is located outside of Cusco, Peru; the former capital of the Inca Empire. The giant rocks of this extremely complex compound are fitted so tightly together, that hundreds of years later you can't even slip a piece of paper between them.



3. Mohenjo-Daro



Built in 2600 BCE, this town which lies in modern-day Pakistan is one of the first examples of modern city planning. The town contains roads, and even a drainage system that worked like a sewer.



4. The Gate Of The Sun



Located in west Bolivia, this gate is the precisely cut, megalithic stone archway of the Tiwanaku empire. The empire stretched from Peru to parts of Bolivia 1500 years ago. It was the most powerful South American nation before the Incans.



5. Göbekli Tepe



This find was so significant that it made archeologist rethink what we know about the origins of human society. When it was found near a mountain top in Turkey, the structure was found to pre-date agriculture (9,000-10,000 BCE), confirming that church or worship were the beginnings of civilization – not commerce.



6. The Longyou Grottoes



Not only is the scale of these tunnels found in Zhejiang, China that date as far back as 212 BCE simply amazing, but they are covered floor to ceiling in precise, evenly spaced 60 degree angled markings.



7. Stone Spheres of Costa Rica





Not a lot is known about these giant stone spheres other than the fact that they were probably made by the Diquis people that lived from 700 to 1530 AD. Legend has it that the spheres are relics from the lost city of Atlantis.



8. Yonaguni Monument





Archaeologists debate whether or not the underwater monument off of the coast of Japan in natural or man made. The monument features twin obelisks that appear to have been put in place, as well as the formation above, known as “the turtle”.



9. The Unfinished Obelisk



It was recently found in Aswan, Egypt. The obelisk was ordered by Hatshepsut in the mid 1500s BC and could have been the largest Egyptian obelisk ever erected, if it were completed.


Related:




9 Spectacular Archaeological Finds Not Found In History Books



Some of the most intriguing archaeological finds in history are rarely mentioned in history books. For instance, have a look at the following amazing discoveries.



1. L'Anse Aux Meadows



This ancient settlement is believed to have been built by the Vikings and it could support up to 160 people. What's incredible is that it was built 500 years before Columbus “discovered” North America!



2. Saksaywaman



This fortress is located outside of Cusco, Peru; the former capital of the Inca Empire. The giant rocks of this extremely complex compound are fitted so tightly together, that hundreds of years later you can't even slip a piece of paper between them.



3. Mohenjo-Daro



Built in 2600 BCE, this town which lies in modern-day Pakistan is one of the first examples of modern city planning. The town contains roads, and even a drainage system that worked like a sewer.



4. The Gate Of The Sun



Located in west Bolivia, this gate is the precisely cut, megalithic stone archway of the Tiwanaku empire. The empire stretched from Peru to parts of Bolivia 1500 years ago. It was the most powerful South American nation before the Incans.



5. Göbekli Tepe



This find was so significant that it made archeologist rethink what we know about the origins of human society. When it was found near a mountain top in Turkey, the structure was found to pre-date agriculture (9,000-10,000 BCE), confirming that church or worship were the beginnings of civilization – not commerce.



6. The Longyou Grottoes



Not only is the scale of these tunnels found in Zhejiang, China that date as far back as 212 BCE simply amazing, but they are covered floor to ceiling in precise, evenly spaced 60 degree angled markings.



7. Stone Spheres of Costa Rica





Not a lot is known about these giant stone spheres other than the fact that they were probably made by the Diquis people that lived from 700 to 1530 AD. Legend has it that the spheres are relics from the lost city of Atlantis.



8. Yonaguni Monument





Archaeologists debate whether or not the underwater monument off of the coast of Japan in natural or man made. The monument features twin obelisks that appear to have been put in place, as well as the formation above, known as “the turtle”.



9. The Unfinished Obelisk



It was recently found in Aswan, Egypt. The obelisk was ordered by Hatshepsut in the mid 1500s BC and could have been the largest Egyptian obelisk ever erected, if it were completed.


Related:




Mexico City shaken by earthquake that struck more than 100 MILES away

Mexico City locals flooded the streets after the quake

© Reuters

Mexico City locals flooded the streets after the quake



An earthquake that caused buildings to sway and forced people to flee onto the streets in the Mexican capital happened more than 100 miles away.

The quake hit at 4.30pm local time in the state of Puebla near Tulcingo del Valle - around 100 miles away from Mexico City.


But residents of the faraway capital were forced to flee shaking buildings.


The city is vulnerable to distant earthquakes because much of it sits atop the muddy sediments of drained lake beds that iggle like jelly when quake waves hit.


Mexico City Mayor Miguel Angel Mancera said many evacuations were reported in the capital but officials received no reports of damage or injuries.


The quake had a depth of 31 miles.


A magnitude-8.1 quake in 1985 that killed at least 6,000 people and destroyed many buildings in Mexico City was centered 250 miles away on the Pacific Coast.