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Romney Incredibly Relieved That He Can Keep All His Houses |
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Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=9160"><span class="small">Andy Borowitz, The New Yorker</span></a>
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Sunday, 01 February 2015 14:49 |
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Borowitz writes: "Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney told supporters on Friday that he was 'incredibly relieved' to be able to keep the approximately five to ten residences he owns across the country."
Mitt Romney. (photo: Bill Pugliano/Getty Images)
Romney Incredibly Relieved That He Can Keep All His Houses
By Andy Borowitz, The New Yorker
01 February 15
 The article below is satire. Andy Borowitz is an American comedian and New York Times-bestselling author who satirizes the news for his column, "The Borowitz Report." 
 ormer Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney told supporters on Friday that he was “incredibly relieved” to be able to keep the approximately five to ten residences he owns across the country.
“Having to talk about how much I care about ordinary Americans and so forth—I was game for that,” he said. “But having to sell all of those houses? That was going to be brutal.”
The 2012 Republican nominee said that he was especially glad he did not have to part with the car elevator in his eleven-thousand-square-foot mansion in La Jolla. “Come on, that thing is neat,” he said.
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Oklahoma Shakes: Earthquakes and Their Connection to the Oil Industry |
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Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=11104"><span class="small">Charles Pierce, Esquire</span></a>
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Sunday, 01 February 2015 14:48 |
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Pierce writes: "Who has the worst job in the world? My choice this week is Austin Holland, the state seismologist for the state of Oklahoma. For years, this must have been a very sleepy job, tantamount to having a job studying coastal erosion in Iowa. But then Oklahoma has been on yet another oil and gas binge."
(photo: The Inquisitr)
Oklahoma Shakes: Earthquakes and Their Connection to the Oil Industry
By Charles Pierce, Esquire
01 February 15
 ho has the worst job in the world? My choice this week is Austin Holland, the state seismologist for the state of Oklahoma. For years, this must have been a very sleepy job, tantamount to having a job studying coastal erosion in Iowa. But then Oklahoma has been on yet another oil and gas binge, and this apparently has made Austin Holland's life a living hell.
Meanwhile, the state seismologist, Austin Holland, readily acknowledged that the industry has tried to influence his work - even as he and his colleague, Amberlee Darold, are pelted with "hate e-mail" from quake victims. "I can't really talk about it," Holland said, taking a cigarette break from the dirty work of burying instruments near a cow pasture southwest of Oklahoma City. "I try not to let it affect the research and the science. We're going to do the right thing."
Oklahoma had a staggering 567 earthquakes registering over 3.0 in 2014. Scientists, to whom we must never listen because they threaten our freedom, have attributed this to the wastewater wells that the extraction industries dig deep into the earth. This has caused some consternation among the locals.
"The question is: Is it all about profits, or do the people have any rights at all?" said Robert Freeman, 69, a retired Air Force contracting officer who is trying to rally his neighbors in Guthrie to demand a moratorium on new disposal wells. "I understand the oil and gas industry is the economic lifeblood of the state. I get some of my paycheck from the oil and gas industry," added Lisa Griggs, 56, a Guthrie environmental consultant. "But they don't get to destroy my house."
Actually, ma'am, they do. That is the abiding truth of the extraction industries. The earth is theirs, including the earth under your house, and if, one day, the earth under your house becomes the earth over your house, that's your bad luck. There are wells to be drilled in other parts of the earth that the extraction industries own. But don't worry, your state government will study the whole business.
State officials insist they are doing all they can to develop new regulations. In September, Gov. Mary Fallin (R) named a coordinating council to study seismic activity. And the Oklahoma Corporation Commission, an elected three-member panel that regulates oil and gas producers, has imposed new restrictions on wells in seismically active areas.
Of course, the industry in question has its own science that it can throw out there concerning Forces Beyond Our Control.
For the most part, Oklahoma oil companies and their representatives have declined to engage in the public debate. When industry representatives have ventured forth, they have denied responsibility for the quakes. At a luncheon hosted by the Oklahoma City Geological Society last summer, Glen Brown, a Continental Resources geologist, blamed a worldwide surge in seismic activity that has nothing to do with wastewater disposal. "There's a hysteria that needs to be brought back to reality that these [quakes] are light and will not cause any harm," Brown said, according to local news reports.
(Brief Aside: it's remarkable how much all the other American corporations learned from the tobacco industry as regards fudging responsibility for the damage they do. They are all Brown and Williamson now.)
The problem for the people of Oklahoma is that there is no politician who yet feels threatened enough by the people under whom the ground is shaking to stand up to the people whose reckless pursuit of private profit is causing the ground to shake in the first place. The state needs a political earthquake and those, alas, are much more unusual these days.
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The Government Loves the Policy 'Technology for Me but Not for Thee' |
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Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=29990"><span class="small">Trevor Timm, Guardian UK</span></a>
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Sunday, 01 February 2015 14:44 |
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Timm writes: "The NSA's repeated invasions of Americans' privacy replaced drones on the front pages, but that hasn't stopped law enforcement from trying to acquire the technology or the federal government from trying to warn of the vast dangers of civilians doing the same thing."
ShadowHawk drone with Montgomery County, Texas SWAT team members. (photo: Lance Bertolino/AP/Vanguard Defense Industries)
The Government Loves the Policy 'Technology for Me but Not for Thee'
By Trevor Timm, Guardian UK
01 February 15
From drones to other tracking technologies, law enforcement increasingly wants to keep their toys to themselves – and to do so with no oversight
 hree seemingly unrelated events explain a lot about the federal government’s complicated and hypocritical reaction to the proliferation of drones and other technology – technology they love to use to track millions of citizens but to which they don’t want citizens to have access.
First, a drunk intelligence agency employee crashed a two-foot toy drone into the White House lawn at 3am earlier this week, while the Federal Aviation Administration banned drones from flying over the Super Bowl on Sunday in Arizona. Then, police started loudly complaining about a traffic app called Waze that also alerts travelers about the location of police cars operating speed traps.
It may be hard to remember now, but the number one privacy issue in America before Edward Snowden came along was invasive police drones, which sparked broad left-right coalitions in state governments across the country. The NSA’s repeated invasions of Americans’ privacy replaced drones on the front pages, but that hasn’t stopped law enforcement from trying to acquire the technology or the federal government from trying to warn of the vast dangers of civilians doing the same thing.
The Department of Homeland Security and the Secret Service are using the White House incident to raise alarms about supposed terrorists using widely-available commercial drones to carry out some sort of terrorist attack, according to The New York Times – nevermind that the drone that crashed at the White House was much too small to do so.
That fits directly into federal and local police’s long-standing “technology for me but not for thee” policy: DHS has issued dire warnings about the threat of a terrorist attack from civilian drones, while also providing police all over the country much more sophisticated drone technology than the public has. DHS spends millions of dollars to “facilitate and accelerate the adoption” of drones by police agencies, much like they underwrite the militarization of the same local police forces. Many of these drones can potentially spy on people from long distances, carry infrared cameras that can see through walls, intercept cell phone data or wifi signals, and otherwise act as the ultimate surveillance devices.
(It’s also ironic that DHS is calling drones a new threat to public safety and warning of their potential use in a terrorist attack when the US government’s much larger, much more sophisticated military drones have been killing people overseas. American drones have created a state of terror for civilians in places like Yemen and Pakistan, who fear they may be mistaken for a terrorist and killed – as has happened many times in the past few years.)
But hobby drone enthusiasts didn’t even have to wait for even more restrictive commercial drone regulations at the administration’s behest, since DIJ – the Chinese manufacturer which makes the Phantom quadcopter that crashed near the White House – said that they would send a mandatory software update to all its drones technically prohibiting them from flying DC airspace. As EFF’s Parker Higgins wrote, “No matter where you stand on drones, this leap from ‘regulation is needed’ to ‘mandatory firmware update’ is chilling. Today it’s drone makers disabling flight in certain cities. Tomorrow, anything with a networked computer: cars, hearing aids, you name it.”
The government doesn’t exclusively insist on a monopoly over certain technologies: they are also advocating for exclusivity of information. Just look at law enforcement’s recent hysterical complaints about Google’s Waze app, which – along with giving drivers the most effective route to their destination – allows users to identify where cops are stationed for speed traps. The National Sheriffs’ Association threw a fit over the app, absurdly claiming that it puts police officers’ “lives at risk”. (They probably meant “livelihood,” given that the app means less speeding ticket revenue for local agencies.) But the Sheriff’s Association’s campaign has already backfired: as soon as they started complaining, downloads for the Waze app skyrocketed.
Of course, the cops can track you whenever they want, wherever they want when you are in public spaces – or at least that is their position. Local police across the country have tracked people’s cell phone locations over days or weeks millions of times, and most of the time without a warrant, let alone public disclosure. God forbid you let someone else know where a visible speed trap is located, which forces them to go the speed limit.
We absolutely need public debate about the proper regulation to manage the safety and privacy issues of commercial drones before they become ubiquitous, just as we need more debate and thought about the proliferation of mobile technology that maps out our public spaces. But the answer to the obvious questions that these technologies raise isn’t just to bar civilians from accessing it and to allow the US government use it uninhibited. We’ve got to be smarter than that, or we risk giving away even more of our rights.
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FOCUS | TPP and International Drug Price Fixing |
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Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=24210"><span class="small">Joseph Stiglitz, The New York Times</span></a>
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Sunday, 01 February 2015 12:18 |
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Stiglitz writes: "A secretive group met behind closed doors in New York this week. What they decided may lead to higher drug prices for you and hundreds of millions around the world."
Joseph Stiglitz. (photo: AP)
TPP and International Drug Price Fixing
By Joseph Stiglitz, The New York Times
01 February 15
 secretive group met behind closed doors in New York this week. What they decided may lead to higher drug prices for you and hundreds of millions around the world.
Representatives from the United States and 11 other Pacific Rim countries convened to decide the future of their trade relations in the so-called Trans-Pacific Partnership (T.P.P.). Powerful companies appear to have been given influence over the proceedings, even as full access is withheld from many government officials from the partnership countries.
Among the topics negotiators have considered are some of the most contentious T.P.P. provisions — those relating to intellectual property rights. And we’re not talking just about music downloads and pirated DVDs. These rules could help big pharmaceutical companies maintain or increase their monopoly profits on brand-name drugs.
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