Month: February 2013

Pope to Stay in Vatican City for “Immunity” and “Security”

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It doesn’t take a “conspiracy theorist” to wonder about the reasons behind the sudden resignation of the Pope; the first time this has happened in 600 years.  As the days have passed, details have begun to emerge and it seems that the most likely catalyst was his connection to the child abuse scandals rampant within the Catholic Church.  Now we find out that as a result of these concerns, he will be hiding out in the Vatican for the remainder of his days.  From Reuters:

(Reuters) – Pope Benedict’s decision to live in the Vatican after he resigns will provide him with security and privacy. It will also offer legal protection from any attempt to prosecute him in connection with sexual abuse cases around the world, Church sources and legal experts say.

“His continued presence in the Vatican is necessary, otherwise he might be defenseless. He wouldn’t have his immunity, his prerogatives, his security, if he is anywhere else,” said one Vatican official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The final key consideration is the pope’s potential exposure to legal claims over the Catholic Church’s sexual abuse scandals.

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Stop CISPA: The Internet Spying Bill is Back in Congress

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If at first you don’t succeed in implementing total state surveillance on your citizenry, try and try again.  These guys are just unbelievable.  From the EFF: It’s official: The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act was reintroduced in the House of Representatives yesterday. CISPA is the contentious bill civil liberties advocates fought last year, which … Read more

Fish Becoming Easier to Catch Due to Anti-Depressants in the Water Supply

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What an epic headline.  I’m certainly not the only one that will draw parallels to the human experience as it relates to the overuse of such drugs in society.  I’ll let the following quotes from the UK’s Daily Mail speak for themselves: A new study shows that anti-depressants in the water supply are making the … Read more

Two Tier Society: In Boston Politicians’ Parking Spaces Are Plowed Before the Handicapped

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While this seems like a minor incident, I do think it reflects a growing two-tier society in America where certain connected people are not only granted privilege when it comes to low interest loans, bailouts and a free pass on the rule of law, but increasingly, also special treatment in the smaller things.  Incredibly, in Boston, bureaucrats’ parking spaces are immediately cleaned off even while those of the handicapped remain covered in snow.  From The Boston Herald:

With much of Massachusetts buried under mountains of snow while residents shoveled out their cars, state lawmakers parked on Beacon Hill in special snow-free parking spaces courtesy of taxpayer-funded plows, the Truth Squad has found.

The free, reserved spaces for lawmakers around the State House were cleared of all snow within hours after the storm ended, while spaces reserved for city residents still remain entombed in snow, untouched by city plows.

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Texas DMV Sells Personal Information and There’s No Opt-Out

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Don’t mess with Texas!  Everyone needs to relax; don’t you know privacy is for terrorists? From Tech Dirt: The Texas DMV claims its “top priority” is protecting drivers’ information, but that hardly seems to be the case when it’s pulling in $2.1 million a year selling it off. There are protections in place, but they … Read more

Wall Street Wins Again: The Much Vaunted Mortgage Task Force “Does Not Exist”

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You know why Jaime Dimon is always smiling and why the oligarchs in general are so arrogant?  They keep pillaging the American public and no one does anything about it.  The sheeple are so brainwashed at this point most of them will fall for anything.  Now, for the outrageous story of the day… From Salon:

Recent profiles of this event have called last night’s State of the Union the “anniversary” of the formation of the working group.  But you can’t really have an anniversary of something that never existed in the first place.  There never was a Residential Mortgage-Backed Securities working group, never a so-called task force dedicated to ferreting out Wall Street fraud — the deceptive origination of mortgage loans, sale of worthless mortgage-backed securities for huge sums, and subsequent unloading of toxic debt to unsuspecting buyers. The working group fails to exist as a tangible entity to this day.  What does exist is the same years-old Financial Fraud Enforcement Group that serves as a conduit for press releases about investigative actions already in progress.

Schneiderman’s “task force” (a generous appellation) was merely a politically motivated shell organization grafted onto that public relations strategy.  This was evident almost from the moment of the announcement, but the coalition of self-proclaimed bank accountability advocates, who had backed the administration into a corner over the lack of prosecutions, decided to align with Schneiderman and his kabuki task force, losing whatever leverage they may have had.  If those same groups who feel “betrayed” and “lied to” had stayed on the outside and shamed those in power into action, we would probably have more accountability today.

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The Meat Industry Now Consumes 80% of All Antibiotics

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Care for a side of horse meat with that dose of tetracycline in your chicken wings?  Recovery never tasted so good!  Basically since 2003, antibiotic use for sick people is flat, but up 50% for use in the meat industry.  These stats are shocking.  From Mother Jones:

Last year, the Food and Drug Administration proposed a set of voluntary “guidelines” designed to nudge the meat industry to curb its antibiotics habit. Ever since, the agency has been mulling whether and how to implement the new program. Meanwhile, the meat industry has been merrily gorging away on antibiotics—and churning out meat rife with antibiotic-resistant pathogens—if the latest data from the FDA itself is any indication.

Note that that while human antibiotic use has leveled off at below 8 billion pounds annually, livestock farms have been sucking in more and more of the drugs each year—and consumption reached a record nearly 29.9 billion pounds in 2011. To put it another way, the livestock industry is now consuming nearly four-fifths of the antibiotics used in the US, and its appetite for them is growing.

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In an email, a Pew spokesperson added that while  the American Meat Institute reported a 0.2 percent increase in total meat and poultry production in 2011 compared to the previous year, the FDA data show that antibiotic consumption jumped 2 percent over the same time period. That suggests that meat production might be getting more antibiotic-intensive.  

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Meet Stingray Surveillance: The “Unconstitutional, All-You-Can-Eat Data Buffet”

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It’s getting impossible to keep track of all the new spy tools being rolled out by the police state in the name of “fighting terrorism”, aka spying on innocent American citizens unconstitutionally.  I thought that I had my hands full the other day with ARGUS: The World’s Highest Resolution Video Surveillance Platform, but this “Stingray” system is already being deployed illegally in cities throughout the United States.  As the EFF states: “The Stingray is the digital equivalent of the pre-revolutionary British soldier.”  From the EFF:

The device, which acts as a fake cell phone tower, essentially allows the government to electronically search large areas for a particular cell phone’s signal—sucking down data on potentially thousands of innocent people along the way. At the same time, law enforcement has attempted use them while avoiding many of the traditional limitations set forth in the Constitution, like individualized warrants. This is why we called the tool “an unconstitutional, all-you-can-eat data buffet.”

Recently, LA Weekly reported the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) got a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) grant in 2006 to buy a stingray. The original grant request said it would be used for “regional terrorism investigations.” Instead LAPD has been using it for just about any investigation imaginable.

Of course, we’ve seen this pattern over and over and over. The government uses “terrorism” as a catalyst to gain some powerful new surveillance tool or ability, and then turns around and uses it on ordinary citizens, severely infringing on their civil liberties in the process.

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How in NYC the Homeless Pay $3,000/Month to Live in Tenements

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I read a lot of news every day.  It’s become my life and my passion.  Rarely do I come across a story of greed and corruption so absurd that I can’t believe my own eyes as they scroll the page.  This is one of those stories.

This takes the concept of slumlord to an entirely new level.  As New York City struggles to find shelter for its increasingly large homeless population, some landlords are paying off their rent-stabilized tenants in order to overcharge the city on rentals for the homeless.  In some cases, the rent ends up being as high as $3,000 a month for a tiny room without a kitchen or a bathroom.  Yep, you read that correctly.  So next time you wonder why you are paying so much money for your little box in the sky, you can thank America’s growing slumlord industry.  Prepare your jaw to remain open for the next couple of minutes.

From the New York Times:

The city’s Department of Homeless Services pays many times the amount the rooms would usually rent for — spending over $3,000 a month for each threadbare room without a bathroom or kitchen — because of an acute shortage in shelters for homeless men and women.

Indeed, the amount the city pays — roughly half that amount goes to the landlord, while the other half pays for security and social services for homeless tenants — has encouraged Mr. Lapes to switch business models and become a major private operator of homeless shelters. He is by most measures the city’s largest and owns or leases about 20 of the 231 shelters citywide. Most of the other shelters and residences are run by the city or by nonprofit agencies, but his operation is profit-making, prompting criticism from advocates for the homeless and elected officials.

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Watertown, New York Decides to “Ban Roommates”

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I understand the concept of not wanting fifty people living in a single family home within a residential neighborhood, but this law bans roommates altogether.  Is this another brilliant scheme to revive the housing market?  Sounds to me like a great way to create more homeless people in a phony recovery everyone knows doesn’t really exist.

From YNN:

WATERTOWN, N.Y. — Lawmakers in Watertown came to a decision that brings more questions than answers. Mainly, can government decide what is and what isn’t a family?

By a vote of three to two, Watertown’s City Council amended a law Monday night that dictates how many roommates a homeowner can have in a single family home in a residential neighborhood. The law used to allow four. Now, it’s zero.

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