31 January 2011
30 January 2011
28 January 2011
27 January 2011
26 January 2011
24 January 2011
Attorneys for Rahm Emanuel late today asked the Illinois Supreme Court to prevent Chicago elections officials from printing ballots for the Feb. 22 mayor's election without his name.
Emanuel's legal team also said they will ask the state's highest court on Tuesday to hear their appeal of a decision by an appellate court today to knock him off the ballot on the grounds he doesn't meet residency requirements.
But he tries to skirt the law! Just like 3-term Bloomberg, whose third term is illegal under the law.
23 January 2011
In a 1986 Supreme Court case, justices were asked whether a police department violated constitutional protections against illegal search and seizure after it flew a small plane above the back yard of a man suspected of growing marijuana. The court ruled that "the Fourth Amendment simply does not require the police traveling in the public airways at this altitude to obtain a warrant in order to observe what is visible to the naked eye."
In a 2001 case, however, also involving a search for marijuana, the court was more skeptical of police tactics. It ruled that an Oregon police department conducted an illegal search when it used a thermal imaging device to detect heat coming from the home of an man suspected of growing marijuana indoors.
21 January 2011
For example, gun sales have risen from a long-term rate of about 8 million a year to the current 14 million, according to Colas. Analysts initially attributed the rise to fear of tougher gun-control laws after the election of President Obama. But the continuing climb two years into his term points to a “deeper sense of unease,” be it over government regulations, crime or some something else, Colas wrote.
In the same vein, a jump in demand for silver coins suggests a “fundamental lack of confidence among enough people in the population as to the long-term soundness of the dollar.”
And a rise in the number of people on food stamps –- currently about 43 million people, or 14% of the U.S. population –- points to the deep strains on lower-income people.
20 January 2011
Indeed I was held against my will in the E.R. area and detained for 5.5 hours as my mental situation was evaluated first by medical doctor Anne DeLonais and eventual by an man named “Adam” who identified himself as the psychiatric admittance evaluator. Adam interviewed me in some depth and also called my personal physician, associated with, and on the board of the hospital. I understand that my doctor told him
That I had experience and knowledge in this area, and if I had declared a radiological problem, that I should be taken seriously. During my stay in the evaluation unit, Dr. DeLonais took my Geiger Counter, with which she was somewhat familiar and did a radiological survey of the area on her own, reporting back that it was still there, had not been cleaned up nor was the cafeteria closed or any warning tape or other obstruction placed over the area involved.
Eventually I was released from the hospital after 5 ½ hours with no apologies, no explanation and no chargers being filed.
I arrived home after midnight and immediately called the NRC operator on duty, Carl Dietrich, at the hotline, 1-301-816-5100 and briefly told the scenario and asked if they were interested. The answer was affirmative and I was debriefed and recorded in detail.
The next morning, 9 Dec 2008, I was contacted by the region 3 NRC investigative coordinator, a Mr. Paul Poelke. Region 3 is the issuer of materials licenses in Missouri and specifically the Hannibal Regional Hospital. Paul and I have worked together on a few other radiological issues in the past, and he wanted some details filled in on this incident and wanted my advice if he should send an investigator or simply ask the hospital RSO for a synopsis. It is my opinion that the proposed 96-hour delay was a strategy to delay my NRC report and to give any short half lived isotopes a chance to go through normal nuclear decay and be, in effect, undetectable. This tactic is not valid however, since the isotope has a high probability of being Tc-99m, and decays from a 6 hour half life gamma emitter into a 213,000 year half life beta emitter, Tc-99. this is easily detectable, but it takes a different set of equipment to do so.
In the past, I have similarly uncovered accidental leaks and spills in several institutions, including some rather serious radium breaches. In every other case, my information was noted and action taken. In this case I was treated as if I were a terrorist. I suggest that my 28 years in law enforcement electronics has left me in a particularly acute if not unique situation to evaluate and report safety issues such as this.
19 January 2011
Meanwhile, back at the Anonymous ranch, several programmers sympathetic to WikiLeaks have been posting programs like Hive Mind LOIC and other updated versions of LOIC, the program initially used to protest the arrest of Assange by launching bots that logjammed the websites of credit-card companies by bombarding them with page requests (sort of the Internet version of having all your friends flush all the toilets in the school at the same time, to overwhelm the plumbing). Similarly adolescent Anonymous antics have proven that you don’t even need to be a computer-literate hacker to make a corporation tremble in its jackboots; just willing to flush. “Paperstorm,” another Anonymous initiative, used the same crowd-sourcing strategy to flood the fax machines of PayPal, Mastercard and Amazon with documents published by WikiLeaks.
This is a thoroughly effective form of protest and free speech, and one that should be protected under the First Amendment. The efficacy of the crowd-source strategy is precisely what seems to be the issue that our authorities object to — but is this not why we have protections under the First Amendment? To decry abuses of power by the institutions that govern us?
18 January 2011
16 January 2011
15 January 2011
14 January 2011
17-year-old witnessed backyard electrocution of family members
A 17-year-old girl witnessed part of the electrocution of three family members, killed Friday morning by a fallen power line in their San Bernardino backyard, a fire captain said.
The girl told investigators that her stepfather, Steven Vego, 44, went to the backyard to inspect some small fires caused by the downed line and fanned by high winds, while her mother, Sharon Vego, 43, went to the frontyard to try to put out a possible fire there, officials said.
Investigators said they believe that Sharon Vego then heard a loud explosion from behind the house and hurried to the backyard, where she found her husband and son. They believe she was electrocuted as she tried to help them.
Firefighters found Sharon Vego on top of her son, Jonathan Cole, 21, and her husband lying nearby. The victims were pronounced dead at the scene.
Firefighters had to wait about 15 minutes for Southern California Edison crews to arrive and cut power to the fallen line before they could reach the victims, said San Bernardino city Fire Dept. Capt. Mike Bilheimer.
The 17-year-old girl and her 10-year-old brother were in the house, and the girl, who saw part of the accident, called 911 about 5:46 a.m., Bilheimer said.
12 January 2011
All in all, the detainment was around thirty minutes long. They all seemed quite distressed that I had no computer and no phone.
• They were quite surprised to learn that Iceland had computers and that I didn't have to bring my own.
• There were of course the same lies and threats that I received last time. They even complemented me on work done regarding China and Iran.
11 January 2011
10 January 2011
05 January 2011
01 January 2011