Stewart skewers CNN for fact checking Saturday Night Live but not their own guests
CNN recently fact checked a Saturday Night Live sketch that criticized President Barack Obama. Jon Stewart wants to know why the network can't be bothered to fact check Republican lawmakers that cite bogus health care reform statistics. On his Monday Daily Show, Stewart skewered CNN for tearing apart a comedy skit when they don't even bother to fact check their own guests.
"You fact checked an SNL sketch?" Stewart remarked. "That's what you fact checked?... You got together, did some research, and put together a report on a Saturday Night Live Sketch?
"While you were doing your research did you also find that sharks live in water and don't deliver candy grams. That there's no African American equivalent of Mr. Rogers? And that the majority of boxes don't have d*cks in them?"
Then, the Daily Show host turned to CNN's ability to fact check healthcare reform...
Goldman Sachs 2009 bonuses to double 2008’s; $23 billion could send 460,000 to Harvard, buy insurance for 1.7 million families
Yesterday, we brought you the insurance company that wouldn't insure a 17-pound infant because he was too heavy. Today, we bring you the investment bank that manages to double its bonuses during the worst recession since the Great Depression.
On Thursday, Goldman Sachs will announce the firm's bonus payments for 2009. Analysts expect the bonus pool to mushroom to $23 billion -- double the bonus pool paid to employees in 2008...
Comcast, the biggest threat to free speech since Nixon
....Two years ago, Comcast, America’s second-largest high-speed Internet provider, blocked BitTorrent, a popular peer-to-peer file-sharing application that could be used to distribute (among many other things) high-definition TV video that would compete with Comcast’s video services. The obstruction was discovered by an amateur singer who wanted to share public domain performances of barbershop quartets with his fellow aficionados. After initially denying that it was blocking BitTorrent, Comcast, which was literally denying access to the King James Bible, claimed that it wasn’t blocking the file-sharing application, but merely delaying it to conserve bandwidth as part of "reasonable network management."
The Comcast case is a model for the free-speech battles of the future, where Internet and wireless providers may want to favor certain content providers over others in order to maximize profits at the expense of consumer choice. This problem is especially acute in the United States because of our lack of competition among broadband companies in most markets. In many towns, Comcast (or its regional equivalent) is the only plausible supplier of broadband. This raises the fear that Internet service providers will start striking deals with the likes of Facebook, charging a price for access that Facebook can afford, but making it impossible for other companies to compete....
SNL spoofs Obama: I won Nobel for not being Bush
NBC's Saturday Night Live spoofed President Barack Obama for the second week in a row on Saturday, declaring in a sketch that the president won the Nobel Peace Prize for not being George W. Bush.
"Jimmy carter won it for decades of trying to find solutions to international conflicts," said actor Fred Armisen, playing Obama. "Al Gore won it for his years of educating the US about climate change. And us? Well, I won it for not being George Bush."
He added: "This award was as a complete surprise, as I have only not been George W. Bush for nine months."...
“DEATH BONDS”: WALL STREET’S SHOCKING NEW PLAN TO REAP BILLIONS OFF DYING AMERICANS
Now we know why America’s oligarchs are fighting to keep the rest of us stuck in the world’s worst health care system: the more we die, the more billions Wall Street will earn. A recent article in The New York Times exposed how Wall Street is licking its lips over a new scheme to make hundreds of billions in profits by creating financial instruments that will profit off of millions of terminally-ill Americans’ agony, desperation, and death. The only thing standing in the way of this massive new Wall Street scheme is the kind of health care reform that might allow Americans to live longer lives. Yep, this is what we spent trillions of dollars bailing out Wall Street for: so that they can kill us for profit.
It sounds like something out of an old sci-fi flick like War of the Worlds, with America’s billionaires as the brutal aliens harvesting our humanoid blood and tissue to fertilize their country club golf courses....
Telephone Company is Arm of Government, Feds Admit in Spy Suit
he Department of Justice has finally admitted it in court papers: the nation’s telecom companies are an arm of the government — at least when it comes to secret spying. Fortunately, a judge says that relationship isn’t enough to squash a rights group’s open records request for communications between the nation’s telecoms and the feds.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation wanted to see what role telecom lobbying of Justice Department played when the government began its year-long, and ultimately successful, push to win retroactive immunity for AT&T and others being sued for unlawfully spying on American citizens....
See Through Walls Using a Wireless Network
Joey Wilson and Neal Patwari have discovered a cheap way of looking through walls. I think this is everyone’s dream. If you are under 14 years old, you simply need to know where mommy keeps your sweets. If you are over 14 and under 20, you should be very curious what other people are doing. If you are over 20, you should wonder how this works; how can you see through walls by using a simple modded wireless network?...
Goldman Sachs trys to take over a Canadian Network and offer Programming Suggestions, CanWest ignore Goldmans...
When a few weeks ago we presented the concept of certain banks stealthy encroachment into the media world we were half joking. After all, the FCC would never allow Wall Street entities, even with equity control, to have a say in program line up and content, right? Needless to say, the potential for abuse (call it brain washing, or what you will) is simply staggering. Separately, two days ago, we highlighted the bankruptcy of Canada's biggest media company, CanWest, whose bankruptcy filings we are still combing through, looking for some of the usual suspects. Which is why we read with great interest Andrew Willis' article in today's Globe and Mail "Inside Goldman's deal with CanWest" which may have helped us, and our readers, elegantly put some of the pieces together....
Goldman Sachs sees no reason to revisit its arrangement with CanWest, which has been blessed by Canadian regulators, according to several sources close to the investment dealer.To date, Goldman executives have not been invited into restructuring talks, a subject of considerable frustration at the investment bank, sources say. Financiers working with Goldman said that over the past year, the investment bank put forward programming ideas for the TV networks, and offered strategic advice on restructuring, but was ignored by CanWest management and its creditors. One concept that’s been tossed around, but couldn’t move forward until CanWest recapitalization was set, would see Goldman Sachs provide programming and financial support to the conventional television network as part of a larger deal that reworks the entire ownership structure to more closely align all the TV holdings.
Earmuff time: why the fuck is Goldman even considered to provide "programming ideas and support?" Granted this is a case where the firm obviously has extensive and deep tentacle reach, however it is the biggest Canadian media company. And if Goldman can act with impunity to determine what the channel line up and who can and who can't be on TV, does this not raise a huge ethical problem straight out of modern version of "1984"? Although CNBC anchors can rest assured that if the Comcast deal does work out and they all end up jobless, there will be a willing home for them to spin their propaganda....
Big Brother FBI's Data-Mining Programs Resurrect
"Total Information Awareness"
Like a vampire rising from it's grave each night to feed on the privacy rights of Americans, the Federal Bureau of Investigation is moving forward with programs that drain the life blood from our constitutional liberties.
From the wholesale use of informants and provocateurs to stifle political dissent, to Wi-Fi hacking and viral computer spyware to follow our every move, the FBI has turned massive data-mining of personal information into a growth industry. In the process they are building the surveillance state long been dreamed of by American securocrats.
A chilling new report by investigative journalist Ryan Singel provides startling details of how the FBI's National Security Branch Analysis Center (NSAC) is quietly morphing into the Total Information Awareness (TIA) system of convicted Iran-Contra felon, Admiral John M. Poindexter. According to documents obtained by Wired:
A fast-growing FBI data-mining system billed as a tool for hunting terrorists is being used in hacker and domestic criminal investigations, and now contains tens of thousands of records from private corporate databases, including car-rental companies, large hotel chains and at least one national department store. (Ryan Singel, "FBI's Data-Mining System Sifts Airline, Hotel, Car-Rental Records," Wired, September 23, 2009)
Among the latest revelations of out-of-control secret state spookery, Wired disclosed that personal details on customers have been provided to the Bureau by the Wyndham Worldwide hotel chain "which includes Ramada Inn, Days Inn, Super 8, Howard Johnson and Hawthorn Suites." Additional records were obtained from the Avis rental car company and Sears department stores...
Olbermann targets Health Care Rreform opponents in
hourlong ‘Special Comment' (Video)
Keith Olbermann personalized the call for health care reform by telling the story of his father's failing health Wednesday. Olbermann devoted the entire hour to a "Special Comment" -- Olbermann's version of an on-air editorial. In an attempt to relate to viewers, Olbermann told a sad story of his father's illness. Olbermann spent 24 hours by his bedside. His challenges included potential kidney failure and dehydration. Olbermann targeted insurance companies because their business models put profits ahead of patient care. "The insurance companies are at war with America," he concluded...
Daily Show's Lewis Black: Two-party system
‘a bowl of sh*t looking in the mirror' (Video)
Comedian Lewis Black's first concert film, set to open this week, is unsparing in its criticism of both political parties.
In a clip played by MSNBC's Keith Olbermann, Black says, "Our two-party system is a bowl of shit looking in the mirror at itself. ... Basically, the last eight years, I feel, the Republicans stood around farting and the Democrats went, 'Ooh, let me smell it.'"
"It's a pungent truth," Olbermann commented to Black. "I think it probably has never been more obvious than currently during this health care debate."
"It's just unbelievable," Black agreed. "How did we end up in a position with people defending health insurance companies?"...
AT&T: iPhone VoIP (Skype) apps can run on our network
Earlier this year, AT&T told Skype and other Internet calling providers that their iPhone apps were going to be Wi-Fi affairs only. But the carrier is reversing course today, saying it will allow Voice over Internet Protocol services to run on its 3G network outside of Wi-Fi hotspots.
This is good news for iPhone VoIP users, who have been saddled with restrictions that other phones users didn't have to contend with. Skype, for example, works on Blackberry and Android phones without having to go over Wi-Fi.Ralph de la Vega, president and CEO of AT&T Mobility & Consumer Markets said the company was responding to customer expectations, which have shifted with the popularity of the iPhone. "Today's decision was made after evaluating our customers' expectations and use of the device compared to dozens of others we offer," he said in a statement...
Windows 7 Will Let Microsoft Track Your Every Move
From FireEagle to iPhone apps that use your current location, everyone it seems is racing to get on the geo-aware software bandwagon. So far most geo-aware features have been opt-in and offer reasonable privacy controls (FireEagle is a good example of this), but Microsoft’s upcoming Windows 7 plans to offer developers location tools at the operating system level and the company doesn’t seem to think users care about control or privacy. Before you freak out at the thought that Redmond will soon be tracking your every move, keep in mind that the new features will be disabled by default. That’s the good news. The bad news is that if you turn the geo features on, there are very few controls available and, yes, Microsoft could easily track your every move. Now you can freak out....
The Secret Sentry: The Untold History of the National Security Agency
Book Review: by James Bramford
On a remote edge of Utah's dry and arid high desert, where temperatures often zoom past 100 degrees, hard-hatted construction workers with top-secret clearances are preparing to build what may become America's equivalent of Jorge Luis Borges's "Library of Babel," a place where the collection of information is both infinite and at the same time monstrous, where the entire world's knowledge is stored, but not a single word is understood. At a million square feet, the mammoth $2 billion structure will be one-third larger than the US Capitol and will use the same amount of energy as every house in Salt Lake City combined.
Unlike Borges's "labyrinth of letters," this library expects few visitors. It's being built by the ultra-secret National Security Agency -- which is primarily responsible for "signals intelligence," the collection and analysis of various forms of communication -- to house trillions of phone calls, e-mail messages, and data trails: Web searches, parking receipts, bookstore visits, and other digital "pocket litter." Lacking adequate space and power at its city-sized Fort Meade, Maryland, headquarters, the NSA is also completing work on another data archive, this one in San Antonio, Texas, which will be nearly the size of the Alamodome......
Homeland Security plans to scan air travelers’ bodily functions (Video)
A Department of Homeland Security program that tries to detect air passengers who are "up to no good" is raising privacy concerns, says a CNN report which aired Tuesday. CNN's Jeanne Meserve described DHS's Future Attribute Screening Technology (FAST) as "marrying a lot of existing technology, some of it medical," to measure breathing, heart rate, blinking, fidgeting, and other bodily functions of passengers at airports..
Oil states say no talks on replacing dollar
(USD Vrs CAD at year low today at $1.05, down from $1.35 in March, If CAD hits 96 cents it will go to Par quickly, where it will stop after that could get interesting as America gets 50% of it's imported Oil from Canada)
Big oil producing nations denied a British newspaper report on Tuesday that Gulf Arab states were in secret talks with Russia, China, Japan and France to replace the U.S. dollar with a basket of currencies in trading oil.
The dollar eased in response to the report, which was written by The Independent's Middle East correspondent Robert Fisk and cited unidentified sources in Gulf Arab states and Chinese banking sources in Hong Kong.
It said the proposal was for trade in crude oil to move over nine years to a basket of currencies including the Japanese yen, the Chinese yuan, the euro, gold and a new, unified currency planned for nations in the Gulf Co-operation Council, which includes Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.
Arab States, China, Russia and France Moving to
Stop Using U.S. Dollar for Oil Trading
From Cyrptogon: I have absolutely no doubt that the Chinese are aware of their ability to flip the kill switch on the U.S. economy. I also have no doubt that, while the blowback would be severe for them, it would be nothing compared to what would happen downrange, in the U.S.
What is this anti dollar coalition waiting for?
This is the way I see it: A bunch of crooks have been screwed over by the leader of the gang and now they’re going to try whack him. But the plan to do that is roughly akin to lobbing a hand grenade inside a small room. The plotters know that they’re going to get bloody in the process. The trick is to determine how to emerge from the situation alive...
Caught On Tape: A Naked Swindle
By Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone
Continuing with the theme of naked short-selling, I have a video that was given to me last week that will allow people to see how naked short-selling can take place.
This video is only 31 seconds long (scroll on down to view it), and what it shows is a day-trader trying to sell short shares in a major NYSE-traded stock. To disguise the identity of the trader, I’ve had to edit out the name of the company in question — I’ll call it BANK X for short. What I can say is that the stock in question is one of America’s largest financial companies and the recipient of an enormous amount of public bailout money, so the fact that its stock can be manipulated is something that should be a concern to everyone.
In the video, which believe me doesn’t look all that sexy, the trader is using an online trading platform. His clearing firm is a company called Penson Financial Services, which, though not particularly well known, has in recent years suddenly become (by volume anyway) one of the biggest such firms in the country.
A quick aside, before I get to the specifics of this video. My recent Rolling Stone article doesn’t talk much about day-trading, which in retrospect is probably too bad. Day-trading is an increasingly large percentage of all trading on Wall Street, and day-traders have a unique ability to impact the value of stocks via naked short-selling. One the big reasons for this is a loophole in the existing rules governing naked short-selling, called Regulation SHO or Reg SHO....
Goldman Sachs & J.P. Morgan Quietly Buying Up the Media
(Video with Micheal Moore at end of Article)
Goldman Sachs and other lenders just swapped debt for 85% of Nassau Broadcasting Partners LP's equity. Nassau operates 51 radio stations along the East Coast. Nassau had to put its Cape Cod, Mass., stations into a separate company, because Goldman has another radio investment in Cape Cod and didn't want its stake to cause a conflict with the FCC.
Throw companies like Tribune into the mix where JP Morgan will allegedly end up with an majority equity stake, and one wonders why Goldman and JPM were so eager to provide "rescue" financings to virtually the entire distressed media space: both companies knew too well that sooner or later they would end up with full equity control over essentially the most coveted industry: thousands of TV stations, radio channels, newspaper and magazines. If you thought the media propaganda was unbearable now, just wait. Nonetheless, one doubts that much will be made by the FCC of JP Morgan's or Goldman Sachs' stealthily encroaching control of the entire media world. After all, they already pretty much already control the airwaves. This way their domination of the 4th estate and the idiot tube will soon be complete.
Alas, all these funds operate primarily out of their offshore accounts. So while they just now start the long, hard process of convincing the FCC they have nothing but the best P&L intentions, Goldman and JPM, or better known as the Treasury and the Fed, will have long cemented their controlling stakes in a streamlined, deleveraged media industry....
Comcast in deal talks with NBC Universal
Cable giant Comcast Corp. is kicking the tires of NBC Universal, according to people familiar with the situation. Comcast, the nation's largest cable operator with almost 25 million subscribers, has been looking to increase its content holdings for several years. In NBC Universal it would get its hands on not only a big broadcast network and movie studio, but also several powerful cable channels, including USA, Syfy, CNBC, MSNBC and Bravo....
Daily Show: Democratic strategists are ‘thinking three failures ahead' (Video)
The Daily Show's Jon Stewart is outraged that the Democratic Party can't seem to pass meaningful health care reform even with a super-majority in Congress.
"Three years ago, the Democrats in our federal government lived in legislative exile," Stewart began. "But all that changed in 2006 when the Democrats regained control of this nation's House of Representatives and its Senate."
"And with that control," he went on, "they still failed ... to get anything. Basically, the Democrats seem like the kind of people who switch to Geico and lose money."...
Augmented Google Earth Gets Real-Time People, Cars, Clouds
Researchers from Georgia Tech have devised methods to take real-time, real-world information and layer it onto Google Earth, adding dynamic information to the previously sterile Googlescape. They use live video feeds (sometimes from many angles) to find the position and motion of various objects, which they then combine with behavioral simulations to produce real-time animations for Google Earth or Microsoft Virtual Earth....
Synthetic Environments for Analysis and Simulation
From Cryptogon.com: Simulex Inc.’s Synthetic Environments for Analysis and Simulation system is almost certainly how the priests of the technocracy are now maintaining “normal” operations, and, more importantly, how They plan to kill most of us off.
The system allows for terra scale datasets with granularity of results down to one node (individual). It has a physics engine for tracking any number of people (or other elements) in virtual cities or spaces. It can correlate any amount of social, economic, political, environmental or other data with the behavior of groups or individuals on the ground. The U.S. Government, and some of the most powerful corporations on the planet are using the SEAS system....
I’ve wondered why my site and thousands of sites like it are allowed to continue to operate…
Simple: More and better targeting data.
They don’t care about me, or what I’m saying.
They’re more interested in who’s paying attention to me, and people like me. Are those numbers increasing, or decreasing? What types of jobs do readers of these sites have? What is their income? What other sites do readers of these sites read? Do the people who read these sites continue to show up to work? (You haven’t been paying attention if you think that They don’t haveThis Information.)...Remember Russell Tice, the NSA SIGINT officer who had knowledge of a special access NSA operation that was so disturbing that he tried to tell the U.S. Congress about it?
What was Tice talking about here:
Tice said his information is different from the Terrorist Surveillance Program that Bush acknowledged in December and from news accounts this week that the NSA has been secretly collecting phone call records of millions of Americans. “It’s an angle that you haven’t heard about yet,” he said....
"Kevin's article here when combined with the article above is getting close to what the NSA has been working on that is best described as the Outer-NET. It is realtime system that records information into records that can be integrated into a platform that can produce a virtual map of where people go, what they read, who they come in contact with and predict what they will do. While this Outer-Net is used for "Terrorism investigations and prevention" It is being outsourced to private industry and can just as easily be used for blackmailing a politician, think Gov Spitzer and his hookers etc.. or stealing corporate secrets. Basically in the future surveillance videos will be required to be active on the internet and accessible by the government, currently many already are, this combined with cell phone data and RFID tags, should be able to create a virtual reality platform when combined with Google Earth, or Microsoft LIVE, that can be used to track people and contacts. Combine this with some software for the cell phones to ping and record contacts with other cell phones, laptops, RFID'ed ID's close by, say 100 meters, features that can be turned on remotely, making all cell phones and Passports active nodes of the Outer-NET for data collection, or audio or video monitoring, etc...and you how some pretty scary tools for use by Governments or Corporations running government contracts. Turning peoples cell phones into remote data collection platforms is a natural extension of the GPS 911 technology that is placed in all cell phones since 2001. You could even capture the signal that cell phones send out to ping towers for GPS location every 30 seconds or so, to identify close contacts to a targeted subject cell phone, and thus capture that phones information and how long they were close to a targeted subject.So what was Russell Tice wanting to tell Congress? Most likely that the Outer-NET has been active for a long time and is growing exponentially everyday and it's information is escaping into the private sector, through Government contracting and there are no laws to govern the uses of the potential outputs of the Outer-NET. That is most likely what he wanted to tell Congress...." Willy Bova
Michael Moore asks: Where is the Democrats’ spine? (Video)
....“What is wrong with our side of the aisle? Where is the spine? Where is the courage?” he asked. “‘Oh, they might filibuster.’ Really? Let ‘em filibuster. Let them read from cookbooks for twenty-four days. I’d like to see that. I’d like to see what the American people would do while they watched the Republicans read from cookbooks for twenty-four days reading from cookbooks filibustering something that should be a human right. The right to see a doctor when you get sick and not have to worry about paying for it.”....
US secretly tried to make deal with Goldman Sachs in wake of financial crisis
Vanity Fair will report in the next issue of the magazine that US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson — a former head of the investment bank Goldman Sachs — tried to orchestrate secretive deals in the midst of the financial crisis but got blowback from prominent investor Warren Buffett...
An Inside Look at How Goldman Sachs Lobbies the Senate
"the SEC is holding a public round table Tuesday to explore several issues around securities lending, which has expanded into a big moneymaker for Wall Street firms and pension funds. Regulation hasn’t kept pace, some industry participants contend.Securities lending is central to the practice of short selling, in which investors borrow shares and sell them in a bet that the price will decline. Short sellers later hope to buy back the shares at a lower price and return them to the securities lender, booking a profit. Lending and borrowing also help market makers keep stock trading functioning smoothly."
via SEC Weighs New Rules for Lending of Securities – WSJ.com.
Later on this week I have a story coming out in Rolling Stone that looks at the history of the Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers collapses. The story ends up being more about naked short-selling and the role it played in those incidents than I had originally planned — when I first started looking at the story months ago, I had some other issues in mind, but it turns out that there’s no way to talk about Bear and Lehman without going into the weeds of naked short-selling, and to do that takes up a lot of magazine inches. So among other things, this issue takes up a lot of space in the upcoming story....
Jon Stewart to Iran: Build your next nuke plant in ‘Sploogistan’ (Video)
In a recent segment on America’s revelation that Iran has been constructing a secret nuclear reactor in the city of Qum, The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart flexed his powers of vocabulary, generating more than a few laugh-out-loud moments over what is otherwise a grave international dispute. “The Islamic Republic of Iran has been building a covert uranium enrichment facility near Qum for several years,” Obama announced during the G20 summit in Pittsburgh.
A rapt Stewart exclaimed to the camera: “Did you hear that? There’s a city in Iran called ‘Qum’! I can’t even believe it!” Obama’s pronunciation of the name — phonetically, “ko-om” — stood in contrast to Stewart’s, who conflated the sacred Iranian city’s name with a male reproductive fluid.....
High-Fructose Diet Raises Blood Pressure in Middle-Aged Men
A diet high in foods with large amounts of fructose sugar such as sweetened soft drinks increased blood pressure in men, according to a study presented today that also found that a drug for gout blocked the effect.
Men in the study who ate a high-fructose diet had their blood pressure rise about 5 percent after two weeks, while those who also were given a gout treatment increased less than 1 percent, study author Richard Johnson said. Eating great amounts of fructose without the treatment also raised the risk of developing metabolic syndrome, a group of risk factors associated with the development of heart disease and diabetes....
Leading Dem Plans To Blow Up Deal With Big Pharma
A Senate Democratic leader is hoping to blow up the deal reached between the White House, drug makers and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.), by introducing an amendment on the floor to allow prescription drugs to be re-imported from Canada....
Senators introduce bill to repeal telecom wiretapping immunity
Four Democratic senators have introduced a bill that would, if passed, repeal the legal immunity afforded the telecommunications industry for their participation in President George W. Bush’s warrantless wiretapping program. Senators Chris Dodd (D-CT), Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Russ Feingold (D-WI), and Jeff Merkley (D-OR) announced the measure Monday. In a release, they said the bill “eliminates retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies that allegedly participated in President Bush’s warrantless wiretapping program.”...
The Lie Machine: GOP operatives are running a secret campaign to kill health care reform, and it's based on Karl Rove's old playbook
On the first day of August, a mob of 200 right-wing Texans stormed the parking lot of a Randalls grocery store in southwest Austin. They were united in a single goal: Disrupt the "office hours" that Rep. Lloyd Doggett, the district's congressman, had scheduled for his constituents. The protesters targeted Doggett for his role in crafting the House's bill to reform health care, brandishing signs that read "No Government Health Care" and "No Government Counselor in My Home!!!" But their anger seemed to encompass a universe of conservative fears: higher taxes, illegal immigration, socialism. The threat of violence was thinly veiled: One agitator held aloft a tombstone with the name Doggett. Screaming, "Just say no!" the mob chased Doggett through the parking lot to an aide's car — roaring with approval as he fled the scene....
Immortality Only 20 Years Away?
Scientist Ray Kurzweil claims humans could become immortal in as little as 20 years' time through nanotechnology and an increased understanding of how the body works. The 61-year-old American, who has predicted new technologies arriving before, says our understanding of genes and computer technology is accelerating at an incredible rate. He says theoretically, at the rate our understanding is increasing, nanotechnologies capable of replacing many of our vital organs could be available in 20 years time. Mr Kurzweil adds that although his claims may seem far-fetched, artificial pancreases and neural implants are already available....
Newly Declassified Files Detail Massive FBI Data-Mining Project
A fast-growing FBI data-mining system billed as a tool for hunting terrorists is being used in hacker and domestic criminal investigations, and now contains tens of thousands of records from private corporate databases, including car-rental companies, large hotel chains and at least one national department store, declassified documents obtained by Wired.com show.
Headquartered in Crystal City, Virginia, just outside Washington, the FBI’s National Security Branch Analysis Center (NSAC) maintains a hodgepodge of data sets packed with more than 1.5 billion government and private-sector records about citizens and foreigners, the documents show, bringing the government closer than ever to implementing the “Total Information Awareness” system first dreamed up by the Pentagon in the days following the Sept. 11 attacks.
Such a system, if successful, would correlate data from scores of different sources to automatically identify terrorists and other threats before they could strike. The FBI is seeking to quadruple the known staff of the program.
But the proposal has long been criticized by privacy groups as ineffective and invasive. Critics say the new documents show that the government is proceeding with the plan in private, and without sufficient oversight...
Big Banks' Sneaky New Tricks
Erik Weech learned about sneaky banking polices the hard way.
A few weeks ago, Bank of America hit the Chicago marketing man with a $35 overdraft fee when he had more than $130 in his account. The bank was apparently "holding" his money for charges that hadn't cleared - only they appear to have been holding three times more than he actually spent. Then, if that wasn't enough, they "reordered" his subsequent purchases in a way that tripled his overdraft charges. Within a couple days, he had racked up $140 in fees.
Authorization holds and transaction reordering are among the banking practices taking increasing heat recently from both consumers and lawmakers. Although nickel-and-dime fees are pervasive - just check your cable bill - the big financial institutions have become poster children for customer abuse. With direct access to your cash, they have developed a range of sneaky tricks that can quickly whittle down your account....The trick that some consumers consider the sneakiest involves so-called authorization holds. These are for debit card purchases that haven’t yet cleared. Sometimes they’re for the amount you spent, but they can be for considerably more.
Consider Weech’s tale of woe. He had $130 in his account on August 31, the same day that the bank inexplicably hit him with a $35 overdraft fee. How did he get charged for an overdraft when he had money in his account? After hours of inquiries, he finally got an explanation of sorts — a vendor placed a hold on the funds in his account, but the hold appears to be for considerably more than he spent. He got no warning from the vendor. He said there also wasn’t any indication that the funds he saw in his account weren’t available for his use.
“The bank tells you that you should be using a check register and keeping track of your account — but how do you keep track of that?” he asked.
Bank of America spokeswoman Anne Pace says situations like Weech’s happen when consumers use their debit cards with particular vendors — commonly at hotels, gas stations, and car rental agencies that often freeze far more than you actually charged. The biggest culprits are hotels — they wouldn’t charge your credit card for your stay until you leave, but if you use a debit card, the desk clerk will put a hold on your account for the full cost of your reservation, plus some estimated amount for incidentals, like using the mini-bar and charging meals to your room....Reordering your checks and debit transactions to withdraw for the largest items first — regardless of when each transaction occurred — is a common practice among the nation’s biggest banks. Bankers say it’s a service to customers, ensuring that your most important payments, such as your mortgage, don’t bounce....Balance transfer and foreign transaction fees are also on the rise. Balance transfer fees, once 2 percent to 3 percent, are now hitting 4 percent and 5 percent, said Bill Hardekopf, founder of LowCards.com.....
CNN's Wolf Blitzer gets ’schooled’ in journalism by Michael Moore (Video)
Michael Moore appeared on CNN Thursday evening with Wolf Blitzer to discuss his new movie, Capitalism: A Love Story. This is Moore’s first interview with Blitzer since his film Sicko was released, and as Moore puts it, they had a ‘YouTube moment.’ Moore slammed Blitzer and CNN for mistatements about universal health care and his film Sicko during that interview in 2007 when Blitzer attempted to debunk facts presented in the film with ‘facts’ from CNN’s medical expert, Dr. Sanjay Gupta. Moore debunked Gupta’s facts in detail on his own web site, and later went head to head with the doctor on the Larry King Show....After Moore asks for the names of people who don’t like them, so he can ‘invite them to dinner,’ he continues with “Why am I against capitalism if I’ve done so well? Shouldn’t the question be better put—I’m not trying to do your job for you—but wouldn’t the question better be, ‘gee Mike, you’ve done so well, why don’t you just kick back at the lake and enjoy your life. Why do you care about people losing their healthcare and their jobs and all that…you’re not losing yours…I wonder if there was a Wolf Blitzer 200 years ago who asked Thomas Jefferson or John Adams or George Washington, ‘hey, you know, you guys are wealthy land owners…’”
'Capitalism' as Comedy and Tragedy Now Playing in NY and L.A. ...a message from Michael Moore
Friends,
The time has arrived for, as Time magazine called it, my "magnum opus." I only had a year of Latin when I was in high school, so I'm not quite sure what that means, but I think it's good.
I've spent nearly two years on this new movie, "Capitalism: A Love Story," and have poured my heart and soul into this project. Many early critics and viewers have called it my "best film yet." That's a hard call for me to make as I'm proud of all of my films -- but I will tell you this: What you are about to see in "Capitalism" is going to stun you. It's going to make some of you angry and I believe it's going to give most of you a new sense of hope that we are going to turn the sick and twisted mess made by the last president around. Oh, and you're going to have a good laugh at the expense of all the banking and corporate criminals who've made out like bandits in the past year.
I'm gonna show you the stuff the nightly news will rarely show you. Ever meet a pilot for American Airlines on food stamps because his pay's been cut so low? Ever meet a judge who gets kickbacks for sending innocent kids to a private prison? Ever meet someone from the Wall Street Journal who bluntly states on camera that he doesn't much care for democracy and that capitalism should be our only ruling concern?....
Jon Stewart on Tom "The Hammer" Delay's Gay Dance Moves (Video)
The bizarre remarks on pornography made at last weekend's Values Voter Summit by the chief of staff to a conservative Republican senator provided an easy target for The Daily Show's Jon Stewart.
Speaking of pre-adolescent boys, Mike Schwartz told the crowd of religious conservatives, "It is my observation that boys at that age have less tolerance for homosexuality than just about any other class of people. They speak badly about homosexuals. And that’s because they don’t want to be that way. They don’t want to fall into it, and that's a good instinct"
Iran Dumps Dollar for Euro in Oil Sales
Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has ordered the replacement of the US dollar by the euro in calculating the value of the country's Oil Stabilisation Fund (OSF).....
General Motors Bans Michael Moore From Detroit Premiere Of His Own Movie (Video)
Michael Moore’s next documentary is “Capitalism: A Love Story,” a film which attacks the U.S. economic system as fundamentally unjust and declares, “Capitalism is an evil, and you cannot regulate evil. You have to eliminate it and replace it with something that is good for all people and that something is democracy.”
Although the movie is not set to open nationwide until Oct. 2, Moore has been premiering a number of sneak preview screenings for Detroit residents in his home state of Michigan. But, as Michigan Live reports, Moore ran into problems when it turned out one of the theaters he rented for the screenings was owned by General Motors (GM) — which Moore famously skewered for its anti-worker policies in his 1989 film Roger & Me...
'Capitalism: A Love Story'
La Times review
Say what you like about Michael Moore, he certainly knows how to pick his subjects. "Fahrenheit 9/11" was so au courant about the invasion of Iraq it won the 2004 Palme d'Or at Cannes, and 2007's "Sicko" got the jump on the current healthcare imbroglio. Now, barely a year after the Wall Street meltdown, "Capitalism: A Love Story" examines, in typical love-it-or-leave-it Moore fashion, the causes of the collapse of the century.
"Capitalism" is not just Moore's latest documentary, it is, as the filmmaker himself has said, "the movie I've been making for the past 20 years." He lays the ills of American society that he's chronicled over all that time at the feet of an out-of-control free-market system he so detests that he puts priests on camera to talk about capitalism as morally evil...