Halliburton pleads guilty to destroying evidence after Deepwater Horizon disaster

Corporate Corruption

 

The Department of Justice announced late Thursday that Halliburton Energy Services has accepted criminal responsibility and will plead guilty to destroying evidence related to the Deepwater Horizon disaster. Halliburton was charged with one count of destroying evidence relating to whether or not the 2010 well blowout in the Gulf of Mexico was preventable.
The full statement from the Department of Justice is below.

Halliburton Agrees to Plead Guilty to Destruction of Evidence in Connection with Deepwater Horizon Tragedy Third Corporate Guilty Plea Obtained by the Deepwater Horizon Task Force

Halliburton Energy Services Inc. has agreed to plead guilty to destroying evidence in connection with the Deepwater Horizon disaster, the Department of Justice announced today. A criminal information charging Halliburton with one count of destruction of evidence was filed today in U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Louisiana.
Halliburton has signed a cooperation and guilty plea agreement with the government in which Halliburton has agreed to plead guilty and admit its criminal conduct. As part of the plea agreement, Halliburton has further agreed, subject to the court’s approval, to pay the maximum-available statutory fine, to be subject to three years of probation and to continue its cooperation in the government’s ongoing criminal investigation. Separately, Halliburton made a voluntary contribution of $55 million to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation that was not conditioned on the court’s acceptance of its plea agreement.
According to court documents, on April 20, 2010, while stationed at the Macondo well site in the Gulf of Mexico, the Deepwater Horizon rig experienced an uncontrolled blowout and related explosions and fire, which resulted in the deaths of 11 rig workers and the largest oil spill in U.S. history. Following the blowout, Halliburton conducted its own review of various technical aspects of the well’s design and construction. On or about May 3, 2010, Halliburton established an internal working group to examine the Macondo well blowout, including whether the number of centralizers used on the final production casing could have contributed to the blowout. A production casing is a long, heavy metal pipe set across the area of the oil and natural gas reservoir. Centralizers are protruding metal collars affixed at various intervals on the outside of the casing. Use of centralizers can help keep the casing centered in the wellbore away from the surrounding walls as it is lowered and placed in the well. Centralization can be significant to the quality of subsequent cementing around the bottom of the casing. Prior to the blowout, Halliburton had recommended to BP the use of 21 centralizers in the Macondo well. BP opted to use six centralizers instead.
As detailed in the information, in connection with its own internal post-incident examination of the well, in or about May 2010, Halliburton, through its Cementing Technology Director, directed a Senior Program Manager for the Cement Product Line (Program Manager) to run two computer simulations of the Macondo well final cementing job using Halliburton’s Displace 3D simulation program to compare the impact of using six versus 21 centralizers. Displace 3D was a next-generation simulation program that was being developed to model fluid interfaces and their movement through the wellbore and annulus of a well. These simulations indicated that there was little difference between using six and 21 centralizers. Program Manager was directed to, and did, destroy these results.
In or about June 2010, similar evidence was also destroyed in a later incident. Halliburton’s Cementing Technology Director asked another, more experienced, employee (“Employee 1”) to run simulations again comparing six versus 21 centralizers. Employee 1 reached the same conclusion and, like Program Manager before him, was then directed to “get rid of” the simulations.
Efforts to forensically recover the original destroyed Displace 3D computer simulations during ensuing civil litigation and federal criminal investigation by the Deepwater Horizon Task Force were unsuccessful.
In agreeing to plead guilty, Halliburton has accepted criminal responsibility for destroying the aforementioned evidence.
The guilty plea agreement and criminal charge announced today are part of the ongoing criminal investigation by the Deepwater Horizon Task Force into matters related to the April 2010 Gulf oil spill. The Deepwater Horizon Task Force, based in New Orleans, is supervised by Acting Assistant Attorney General Mythili Raman and led by John D. Buretta, who serves as the director of the task force. The task force includes prosecutors from the Criminal Division and the Environment and Natural Resources Division of the Department of Justice; the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Louisiana and other U.S. Attorney’s Offices; and investigating agents from: the FBI; Department of the Interior, Office of Inspector General; Environmental Protection Agency, Criminal Investigation Division; Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Inspector General; National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Office of Law Enforcement; U.S. Coast Guard; U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; and the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality.
The case is being prosecuted by Deepwater Horizon Task Force Director John D. Buretta, Deputy Directors Derek A. Cohen and Avi Gesser, and task force prosecutors Richard R. Pickens II, Scott M. Cullen, Colin Black and Rohan Virginkar.
An information is merely a charge and a defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

Related news, none of which is likely to be particularly good for Halliburton shareholders: Halliburton is one of multiple companies named in a US Department of Justice fracking antitrust probe.
And defense contractor KBR, a former Halliburton subsidiary previously known as Kellogg Brown & Root, must face claims that its employees took kickbacks while shipping military equipment to Iraq and Afghanistan, according to a ruling by the US 5th Circuit.

NSA amendment's thin defeat sparks battle in Congress over privacy, surveillance

Paranoia Strikes Deep

Writing about yesterday's narrow vote in the House to defeat an amendment that would have reined in the NSA's vast spying of phone communications, Spencer Ackerman at the Guardian says a bipartisan coalition is now working to reset the balance between liberty and security.

A tally of the votes shows that a majority of Democrats voted in favor of the amendment. One of them, Barbara Lee, told the Guardian that the "stage was now set" to curb the NSA. "It was a great beginning – a first step," she said. "I can tell you why I voted for it – and most Democrats have the same sentiment – we have to a balance between civil liberties and national security, and I believe this was a very carefully crafted and balanced amendment. Right now, we must rein in the NSA."

Feds tell major internet companies to hand over users' account passwords

Did You Know ...

At CNET, Declan McCullagh reports that the U.S. government has demanded that large Internet companies provide them with users' stored passwords. The move represents "an escalation in surveillance techniques that has not previously been disclosed," he writes. "If the government is able to determine a person's password, which is typically stored in encrypted form, the credential could be used to log in to an account to peruse confidential correspondence or even impersonate the user." 

NSA spying may be harming American tech companies’ bottom line

Paranoia Strikes Deep 

There's been much speculation that Edward Snowden's revelations about the NSA spying program PRISM have damaged U.S. tech companies' credibility among international clients who were the operation's primary targets. But Andrea Peterson at the Washington Post writes that "it’s starting to look like the snooping is hitting U.S.-based cloud providers where it really hurts: Their pocketbooks."

Computer World UK reports a recent Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) survey found 10 percent of 207 officials at non-U.S. companies canceled contracts with U.S. providers after the leaks, and 56 percent of non-U.S. respondents are now hesitant to work with U.S.-based cloud operators. This is bad news for U.S. tech companies because cloud computing and storage is a huge, expanding market. Research firm Gartner forecasts the public cloud services market will grow 18.5 percent in 2013 to a total of $131 billion worldwide.

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Rescued hikers died later the same evening after driving their car into the sea

Stories in the News

Two women who got lost hiking and were successfully rescued died later the same evening after driving their car into the sea. The friends presumably drowned, according to authorities in eastern Maine. They were named as Amy Stiner, 37, who was five months' pregnant and lived locally, and Melissa Moyer, 38, who was visiting from her home in Sunbury, Pennsylvania.

Mrs Stiner appears to have accidentally steered her 2001 blue Dodge people carrier, in foggy weather, down a boat ramp at the end of the ocean road at about 9pm on Tuesday. Washington County Sheriff Donnie Smith called the deaths a tragic accident. "They called on the phone that they were in the water and the car was filling up. Then the phone went dead," he said. "An hour later, the deputies found the car."

Earlier that day, the women had been hiking in Roque Bluffs State Park, but got lost and called for help. An off-duty firefighter found them and their dog and gave them a lift on his quad bike back to his house, where a warden met them and took them to their parked car. But Mrs Stiner then appears to have turned right out of the car park towards the boat ramp, instead of in the other direction towards her home in Machias.

Volunteer firefighter Travis Preston found the submerged car in about 20ft of water about 175ft off the boat ramp. The women and the dog were inside on the back seats, with the doors closed and the windows up. The weather could well have contributed to the accident, Sheriff Smith said. "It appears they went the wrong direction and drove off the ramp," he added. "If you don't know the area, in the fog and rain it wouldn't be a difficult thing to do."

There's a news video here. (Click on image to start).

Surprise inspection of luxury cruise ship results in failing health grade - Surprising no one

Miscellanea

The Centers for Disease Control's Vessel Sanitation Program visited the ultra-luxury cruise ship Silver Shadow, unannounced, and gave a failing grade for "one of the plushest cruise ships afloat." The operators were cited repeatedly for using an "organized effort" to remove 15 trolleys of food from the ship's galley to individual crew cabins to "avoid inspection." More at CNN, including video. 

What Your Favorite Ice Cream Says About You

Did You Know ...

To celebrate the National Ice Cream Month, ice cream purveyor Baskin-Robbins commissioned smell and taste expert (apparently, there is such a guy) Dr. Alan Hirsch to conduct a study on the relationship between ice cream flavors and personality.

"We uncovered quite a few surprising findings when investigating what a person’s favorite ice cream flavor says about their personality," said Dr. Hirsch. "For instance, we found that people who prefer Rainbow Sherbet are more pessimistic than you would think, in spite of the flavor’s bright taste profile, and that those who prefer Rocky Road are actually very good listeners.”

The results:

• If your favorite flavor is Vanilla, you’re more likely to be impulsive, easily suggestible and an idealist.
• If your favorite flavor is Chocolate, you’re more likely to be dramatic, lively, charming, flirtatious, seductive and gullible.
• If your favorite flavor is, Very Berry Strawberry, you’re more likely to be a tolerant, devoted and an introvert.
• If your favorite flavor is Mint Chocolate Chip, you’re more likely to be argumentative, frugal and cautious.
• If your favorite flavor is Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough, you’re more likely to be ambitious, competitive and a visionary.
• If your favorite flavor is Pralines ‘n Cream, you’re more likely to be loving, supportive and prefer to avoid the spotlight.
• If your favorite flavor is Jamoca (i.e. coffee), you’re more likely to be scrupulous, conscientious and a moral perfectionist.
• If your favorite flavor is Chocolate Chip, you’re more likely to be generous, competent and a go getter.
• If your favorite flavor is Rainbow Sherbet, you’re more likely to be analytic, decisive and a pessimistic.
• If your favorite flavor is Rocky Road, you’re more likely to be aggressive, engaging and a good listener.

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Ten Words That You've Probably Been Misusing

Did You Know ...

There are so many words in the English language that it’s not surprising that the definitions for some of them have gotten mixed up over the years. It’s possible that you’ve gone your entire life without realizing your mistakes. I’m sure people have noticed. One day, you were probably walking down the street, casually chatting with an old friend, and one of these words slipped out of your mouth. Before you can move on to your story about how Mufasa would actually make a very attractive human, your friend stops to correct your error, and suddenly, your whole life starts to feel like one giant lie. How long have you been using that word incorrectly, you wonder? How many angry Facebook rants have you ruined with your improper grammar? While I can’t give you an answer to those questions, I can at least provide you with a list of other tricky words so that you may never have to suffer from this embarrassment ever again:
1) Travesty
What you may think it means: a tragedy, an unfortunate event
What it actually means: a mockery; a parody
This one, I’ll admit, is my own personal error. For the longest time, I equated travesty with tragedy, mostly because in passing, they sound like the same word. It’s stupid, I know, but if you knew how many times I confused fetal position with beetle position, you wouldn’t be laughing. It’s a serious problem.
2) Ironic
What you may think it means: a funny coincidence
What it actually means: contrary to what you might expect
It’s not ironic that you bumped into a talking turtle in a sweater vest right after you told your friend how cool it would be to bump into a talking turtle in a sweater vest. It’s a coincidence, and believe it or not, those two words are not related. Also, you should probably lay off the drugs because I’m pretty sure animals shouldn’t be talking.
3) Peruse
What you may think it means: to skim or glance over something
What it actually means: to review something carefully/in-depth
How this definition got completely turned on its head, I’ll never know, but I’ll be sure never to say “I’m going to go peruse my math textbook” ever again, just in case someone overhears and tries to hold me to it under the real meaning.
4) Bemused
What you may think it means: amused
What it actually means: confused
Again, with the whole “words sounding alike” issue. I’m starting to think I just need hearing aids. This is getting out of hand.
5) Compelled
What you may think it means: to willingly do something, to feel like you need to do something
What it actually means: to be forced to do something (willingly or unwillingly)
The word you’re looking for is “impelled.” I agree, it doesn’t get enough attention.
6) Nauseous
What you may think it means: to feel sick
What it actually means: to cause nausea
When you eat too much ice cream and declare to your mom or the nearest adult, “I feel nauseous,” what you’re actually saying is that you are causing people around you to feel sick. Thanks, jerk. (For the record, “I’m nauseated” is the way to go.)
7) Conversate
What you may think it means: to hold a conversation
What it actually means: ABSOLUTELY NOTHING
This word is a mix of conversation and converse, and doesn’t actually exist, like unicorns or YOUR DREAMS. (I’m kidding. Unicorns are totally real.)
8) Redundant
What you may think it means: repetitive
What it actually means: superfluous, able to be cut out
“Including this sentence is redundant because you already mentioned your love of Santa Claus in the previous paragraph.” This has always been my exposure to the word redundant, so it only makes sense that I would think repetitive was correct. I can’t be the only one? Right? RIGHT?
9) Enormity
What you may think it means: enormousness
What it actually means: extreme evil
I don’t know where the “extreme evil” thing came from (probably the Devil) but enormity makes more sense as enormousness in my mind.
10) Terrific
What you may think it means: awesome, fantastic
What it actually means: causing terror
Okay, so “causing terror” is more of an outdated definition but I still thought it was interesting. Maybe keep this fun fact in the back of your mind the next time you call your favorite camper, “Terrific Tommy,” because technically, a few decades ago, that might have been an insult. Unless instead of a camper, he’s a serial killer. In that case, go for it.

NASA’s Finds Particle Accelerator at Heart of Earth’s Radiation Belts

Scientific Minds Want To Know

NASA’s Finds Particle Accelerator at Heart of Earth’s Radiation Belts

Scientists have discovered a massive particle accelerator in the heart of one of the harshest regions of near-Earth space, a region of super-energetic, charged particles surrounding the globe called the Van Allen radiation belts. Scientists [...]

A new virus ("Pandoravirus") has been discovered

Scientific Minds Want To Know

The name comes not from any implications about its risk to human health, but because the enormous size of the virus (and its genetic code) alters the parameters by which viruses have conventionally been understood.

Over the past decade, scientists have discovered a vast menagerie of viruses that are far bigger, and which carry enormous arsenals of genes. French researchers are now reporting the discovery of the biggest virus yet. The pandoravirus, as they’ve dubbed it, is 1,000 times bigger than the flu virus by volume and has nearly 200 times as many genes — 2,556 all told.

Making the discovery all the more startling is the fact that, of all the genes that pandoraviruses carry, only six percent match any gene known to science. 

“We believe we’re opening a Pandora’s box – not so much for humanity but for dogma about viruses,” said Dr. Jean-Michel Claverie of the University of Mediterranée, co-author of the paper that was published online Thursday in the journal Science. “We believe we’re touching an alternative tree of life.” 

The virus is so big that it can be seen by light microscopy.  

Further details at The New York Times,

Ziggy

Thor's Hero Shrew

Animal News

A new species of hero shrew was found in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2012 and given the awesome name Thor's hero shrew (Scutisorex thori). How does such a tiny animal deserve such a heroic name? Hero shrews have a superpower -the strongest backbone of any mammal on earth!

Between our rib cage and pelvis, we have five specialized vertebrae called lumbar vertebrae. Allen found that the African hero shrew can have up to 11 lumbar vertebrae, and each is fortified by a unique interlocking arrangement that makes the entire backbone super-strong. This was no news to the locals that lived alongside the species – the Mangbetu people of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) named it “hero shrew” long before it was given its scientific name.

In fact, the Mangbetu would show off a parlor trick in which a grown man would stand on a hero shrew and then watch it walk away uninjured. The newly-found hero shrew is the second species of hero shrew, and is even smaller than its cousin. Scientists aren't sure, but think the strong backbone may help the shrew pull tree parts apart to find grubs to eat. More

Zoopharmacognosy

Animal News

YouTube link.

Zoopharmacognosy refers to the process by which non-human animals self-medicate by selecting and using plants, soils, and insects to treat and prevent disease...

"[YouTube] clip borrowed from the "Peculiar Potions" episode of BBC's series "Weird Nature" - a jaguar in the Peruvian rain forest eats Yage (Banisteriopsis caapi), a vine containing hallucinogenic chemical harmaline and other beta carbolines, used by natives in a ritualistic ceremony involving Ayahuasca."

Black Death Squirrels

Animal News

 

A ground squirrel recently found in Southern California's Angeles National Forest has tested positive for plague.
Authorities have evacuated and shut down an area of the national forest near Los Angeles for at least one week, county public health officials said Thursday.
From Reuters:

Health officials said that as a precaution, visitors were ordered to leave three campgrounds and a recreation area of the Angeles National Forest, which encompasses some 655,000 acres in the San Gabriel Mountains just north of metropolitan Los Angeles. Plague, known as the "Black Death" when it was blamed for killing some 25 million Europeans during the Middle Ages, is a bacterial infection that can be transmitted to humans through the bites of infected fleas. A health department spokesman said no people were believed to have been infected. "It is important for the public to know that there have only been four cases of human plague in Los Angeles County residents since 1984, none of which were fatal," the health department chief, Dr. Jonathan Fielding, said in a statement.

Here's the LA County Department of Public Health's PDF factsheet on plague vectors.

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The Daily Drift

The Daily Drift

Octophant mural in east London

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Today in History

657		Mu'awiyan defeats Caliph Ali in the Battle of Siffin in Mesopotamia.
1526		Lucas Vasquez de Ayllon and colonists leave Santo Domingo for Florida.
1529		Francisco Pizarro receives a royal warrant to "discover and conquer" Peru.
1758		British forces capture France's Fortress of Louisbourg after a seven-week siege.
1759		The French relinquish Fort Ticonderoga in New York to the British under General Jeffrey Amherst.
1775		The Continental Congress establishes a postal system for the colonies with Benjamin Franklin as the first postmaster general.
1790		An attempt at a counter-revolution in France is put down by the National Guard at Lyons.
1794		The French defeat an Austrian army at the Battle of Fleurus, France.
1830		King Charles X of France issues five ordinances limiting the political and civil rights of citizens.
1847		Liberia becomes the first African colony to become an independent state.
1848		The French army suppresses the Paris uprising.
1886		William Gladstone is replaced by Lord Salisbury as Prime Minister of England.
1918		Britain's top war ace, Edward Mannock, is shot down by ground fire on the Western Front.
1920		The 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is ratified.
1948		In an Executive Order, President Harry Truman calls for the end of discrimination and segregation in the U.S. armed forces.
2005		The shuttle Discovery launches on mission STS-114, marking a return to space after the shuttle Columbia crash of 2003.

Non Sequitur

You are here

A Little Perspective, Please 

Distant space probes capture extraordinary new images of Earth

NASA has released new color and black-and-white photographs of Earth captured by two interplanetary spacecraft on July 19. The images show our home planet and moon as bright beacons seen from millions of miles away in space. Earth is 898 million miles (1.44 billion kilometers) away in this image. We're that blue dot at center right; our moon is off to that dot's right side.

 From the NASA announcement:

NASA's Cassini spacecraft captured the color images of Earth and the moon from its perch in the Saturn system nearly 900 million miles (1.5 billion kilometers) away. MESSENGER, the first probe to orbit Mercury, took a black-and-white image from a distance of 61 million miles (98 million kilometers) as part of a campaign to search for natural satellites of the planet.

Larger image here, with more of the wonderful story behind it.

In this rare image taken on July 19, 2013, the wide-angle camera on NASA's Cassini spacecraft has captured Saturn's rings and our planet Earth and its moon in the same frame. It is only one footprint in a mosaic of 33 footprints covering the entire Saturn ring system (including Saturn itself). At each footprint, images were taken in different spectral filters for a total of 323 images: some were taken for scientific purposes and some to produce a natural color mosaic. This is the only wide-angle footprint that has the Earth-moon system in it. The dark side of Saturn, its bright limb, the main rings, the F ring, and the G and E rings are clearly seen; the limb of Saturn and the F ring are overexposed. The "breaks" in the brightness of Saturn's limb are due to the shadows of the rings on the globe of Saturn, preventing sunlight from shining through the atmosphere in those regions. The E and G rings have been brightened for better visibility.

The 10 Youngest People Ever to Achieve a Doctorate

Now that's Interesting

It's quite impressive to know that Alex Santoso received his PhD at only 25. But it's not a world record. There are outliers, childhood prodigies, who skipped grades left and right to get a doctorate at unbelievably young ages, like Ruth Lawrence.

In 1985, at the tender age of 13, Ruth Lawrence graduated from Oxford University with a bachelor’s degree in Mathematics. The next year, she got a second degree, this time in Physics, which was followed by a PhD in Mathematics in 1989 when she was just 17. After spending some time at Harvard as a junior fellow and working at the University of Michigan as an associate professor, Lawrence moved to Israel. There, she became an associate professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

But she wasn't the youngest ever. Read about ten such young doctors: Here.

How Much is That Job Seeker in the Window?

On The Job

Finding a job is tough in today's economy. And if sending hundreds of resumes don't work, what's a job seeker to do? How about putting oneself on display? Hey, if it works for prostitutes in Amsterdam's red-light district, why not this?

After pounding the pavement for two years in some cases, highly trained professionals—ranging from lawyers to former CEOs to tax experts—are standing in line to get a seat in the "exhibit."
"I'm willing to try anything," said Hannibal Camel Holt, an unemployed political scientist, as he took his place in the window one afternoon. Armed with a laptop computer and wearing a dark blue button-down shirt, Mr. Holt has been "kicking doors in and chasing leads," as he puts it, on and off for four years, striking out despite qualifications that include speaking six languages. For him, sitting-in represented a necessary, albeit awkward step.
"I feel like a monkey…in a cage as people walk by and just stare at me," the former tax ministry employee said as he sat behind a desk and occasionally glanced at passersby. After he had recently missed out on a job that had attracted 265 applicants, he realized that "there comes a point when your CV is, like, dead." A résumé, in other words, doesn't necessarily do the trick.

John D. Stoll of The Wall Street Journal has the story: Here.

Believe It Or Not Jimmy Carter Is The Most Threatened Ex-President in US History

Did You Know

Here is something you might have never guessed in a million years. According to a new book by Larry Sabato, Jimmy Carter is the most threatened ex-president in US history. The Washington Examiner reported that:

In “The Kennedy Half Century: The Presidency, Assassination, and Lasting Legacy of John F. Kennedy,” Carter told author Larry J. Sabato that he has faced at least three home-grown assassination attempts since returning to Georgia and is constantly warned by the U.S. Secret Service of personal threats during his frequent overseas travel.
“I have had two or three threats to my life after I came home from the White House,” Carter said in the highly-anticipated book due out October 22. “When I go on an overseas trip almost invariably, I get a report from the Secret Service that where I’m going is very dangerous,” he added in the book provided in advance to Secrets.
Carter also told Sabato: “Sometimes they [Secret Service] ask me not to go, and I go anyway. They and I both just laugh about it. So I have been more concerned about my safety in doing the Carter Center’s business overseas than I ever was in the White House.”

Carter has been targeted by both US and foreign assassins, and the threats it seems are still coming at him today. The foreign assassins are understandable because of all of the international work that former President Carter does, but three homegrown attempts on his life since he left office is a bit mind boggling. There have been former presidents that were much more controversial than Carter. It is difficult to comprehend how Carter could be more threatened than Nixon. Carter’s comments about Israel’s apartheid being worse than South Africa’s is just one example of how the former president has made his opinions known. However, Carter didn’t commit crimes like Nixon, tank an economy like Bush, or have a sex scandal like Clinton.
It is a little hard to believe that Jimmy Carter is America’s most threatened ex-president, but this is why all former presidents need Secret Service protection. Just because the president has left office, it doesn’t mean that the threats stop.

The truth be told

It’s Time to Investigate Boehner, Issa, and the repugican Criminal Conspiracy

Lunatic Fringe 

 

A conspiracy is an agreement to perform together, an illegal, wrongful, or subversive act, and according to legal statutes is a crime in and of itself. Beginning on Inauguration night in 2009, repugicans conspired to deliberately obstruct any and all attempts by new President, Barack Obama, to reverse the devastation of their economic malfeasance that led to the worst recession since the Great Depression, and whether or not it was an illegal act, it was certainly wrongful and subversive. Over the past four-and-a-half years, repugicans have systematically conspired to abrogate their duty as legislators, and between swearing oaths to violate Article 1, Section 8, of the U.S. Constitution, to fabricating false scandals to take down President Obama, or serving corporate interests, it is high time to demand an investigation into Republicans in Congress and take appropriate action to remove them from office.
On a Sunday talk show, House Speaker John Boehner stated, without reservation and with pride that repugicans “ought to be judged on how many laws we repeal,” and it illustrates that throughout President Obama’s tenure as leader of the Executive branch of government, they have been guilty, at least, of dereliction of duty and at most, conspiring to inflict damage on the federal government. The list of attempts by repugicans to prevent the federal government from operating according to the Constitution is exhaustive, but there are instances that demand an accounting for the certain, and potential, damage they have caused this nation and its people. The repugicans most egregious offenses involve starving the government of resources, and it involves violating their oath of office as well as a well-planned conspiracy to defund the Treasury Department’s ability to collect revenue, and it appears the man charged with providing oversight of the government is at its center.
Last week repugicans proposed defunding the Internal Revenue Service for doing its due diligence in scrutinizing bogus tax-exempt “social welfare” applications of conservative groups, and according to testimony from the Treasury Department’s inspector general for tax administration, the IRS was asked by House Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa (r-CA) “to narrowly focus on tea party organizations.” Besides wasting time on a Rrpugican-fabricated scandal, Issa’s campaign profited by raising nearly $450,000 more than his previous quarter for the largest fundraising effort since he took office eleven years ago. There is a petition to demand a Congressional Ethics Committee investigation into Issa for his manufactured IRS scandal, if for no other reason than House repugicans are using the so-called scandal to slash the IRS budget and starve the government of much needed revenue that repugicans have made their primary goal throughout President Obama’s tenure.
Despite swearing an oath to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States…and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter,” all repugicans in Congress have violated their oath by swearing to anti-tax, and un-American, Grover Norquist, to “oppose any and all efforts to increase the marginal income tax rates for individuals and/or businesses.” The oath violates every congressional representative’s oath under Article 1, Section 8, that mandates Congress “lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States.” The repugicans have fulfilled their oath to Norquist and opposed any and all attempts “lay and collect taxes.”  Besides slashing the IRS budget to restrict them from collecting $1 trillion in taxes from their wealthy supporters and corporate masters due to the phony IRS scandal, they used greater tax cuts for their wealthy supporters as a ransom to pay the debts they created during the shrub junta.
It is a crime to hold a hostage for ransom, and repugicans committed an $18.9 billion crime in 2011 when they ransomed the debt limit increase in exchange for maintaining tax breaks for the rich and severe spending cuts that cost the people services as well as raising the unemployment rate and creating stagnation in job growth according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The repugicans admitted they held the full faith and credit of the United States hostage, and promised they would repeat the crime when the limit needed to be raised again. For the record, repugicans raised the debt ceiling several times during the shrub junta as “necessary to keep the United States’ economy healthy and running smoothly,” and it proves they deliberately damaged the economy, growth, and credit rating with their criminal conspiracy.
When repugicans swept into the House after the 2010 midterm elections, they promised their constituents creating jobs was their highest priority, and besides not creating even one job over the past two-and-a-half years, they successfully obstructed 17 jobs bills as of one year ago. Each time repugicans claimed “America is broke” and could hardly afford putting millions of Americans back to work, but each and every jobs bill was deficit neutral. However, throughout the time they blocked those bills, they fought for more unfunded tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy despite adding to the deficit they claimed was unsustainable. Besides keeping Americans desperate for jobs, they successfully starved the federal government of tax revenue employed Americans would generate.
Throughout the President’s first term in office, repugicans made little secret their goal in preventing economic recovery and killing jobs was to deny Obama a second term. However, their criminal activity has continued unabated well into the President’s second term and it is further proof the not-so-secret conspiracy is emasculating the economy to allow their wealthy Wall Street and corporate donors the ability to privatize the federal government. On Sunday Speaker Boehner claimed repugicans were serving the will of the American people, but at no time in the nation’s history have the people supported any party’s attempt to destroy the economy or prevent economic growth. Whether it is the repugican adherence to Libertarian ideology or portraying Barack Obama as incompetent, their four-year conspiracy is criminal. Every policy and agenda repugicans put forth is in direct opposition to the will of the people and borders on criminal conspiracy to destroy the federal government’s ability to function, and for their efforts and to preserve the Union, they deserve investigations, prosecutions where possible, and removal from office as the criminals they have proven to be over four-and-a-half conspiratorial years.

Despite Several Fatal Shootings, NC Passes Law Allowing Guns at Bars

Lunatic Fringe

 

Both chambers of the North Carolina legislature have passed a bill that would allow residents with a concealed handgun permit, to carry their gun into bars and nightclubs that serve alcohol.  If repugican Governor Pat McCrory signs the bill into law, North Carolina residents will be able to carry concealed handguns into the state’s bars and nightclubs, unless those clubs expressly prohibit admitting anyone with a concealed handgun. Guns, alcohol and crowds of people under the influence, what could possibly go wrong?
Surely somewhere Wayne LaPierre is smiling and thinking to himself, “the only thing that stops a drunk guy with a gun, is a drunker guy with a gun”. Of all the things the North Carolina lawmakers could have been thinking, one wonders why the idea that bars and night clubs need more guns was one of them.
After all, the bill was passed on the one month anniversary of the shooting death of 22-year old Alejandro Alavarez who was murdered outside Skandalo’s Nightclub in Charlotte, when an ordinary fight escalated into the fatal shooting. Nine days earlier, Cedric Miller was shot to death outside Duke’s Nightclub, also in Charlotte. Earlier in the year Paul Anthony Fyffe Jr. was shot and killed outside Club 935 in Charlotte. In April an altercation turned deadly in Wilson County, North Carolina when Christopher Barnes shot and killed Travis Hilliard and wounded Antonio Montreal outside Oscar’s Lounge with a 9 mm handgun. In February, one man was fatally shot and three others wounded at the Nitty Gritty Restaurant and Nightclub in Winston-Salem. At least, three of the four men were shot inside the club, while the fourth may have been wounded in the parking lot.
A Goldsboro strip joint, Teaser’s Night Club, had its alcohol permit pulled by the North Carolina ABC Commission late last year after a fatal shooting in the rest room. The club also had a previous shooting incident which occurred inside the bar in 2011. In May of this year, three people were shot and wounded inside the Boom Boom Room nightclub in Elizabethtown. An April shooting at Flyer’s Bar in Havelock claimed the life of  Todd North, an ex-Marine who served as the head of Security for the bar. North was killed trying to prevent a teenager who had been thrown out of the bar earlier from returning. Though North was armed and able to return fire he apparently failed to connect while his assailant delivered a fatal bullet wound to North during the altercation.
In a shooting that began as an argument between two woman over a man, Krystal David opened fire in a Smithfield Sports Bar that seriously wounded four bystanders. Like most of the nightclub shootings in North Carolina that incident took place in the early morning hours, when people who have been drinking all evening are most likely to be fortified with alcohol and poor judgement. The lethal cocktail of guns and alcohol is now being served, pending the Governor’s signature, courtesy of the North Carolina legislature, despite the fact that the state has already had multiple fatal night club shootings in 2013.
Despite this series of murders, North Carolina’s repugican dominated legislature has decided that allowing more guns in bars is actually a good idea. While lawmakers have argued that permit holders are not a threat because they have passed gun safety courses, one has to wonder how many of them passed those courses after powering down a six-pack of beer and a couple shots of Bourbon. Alcohol impairs judgment and allowing bar patrons to carry guns is a recipe for more arguments and fist fights to become deadly gun battles.
In addition, the Charlotte Observer found that in Mecklenburg County alone, sixty convicted felons  hold legal handgun permits including five who were convicted of armed robbery, three who were convicted of manslaughter and one that was convicted of second-degree murder. Over two hundred permit holders in the county had drug crime convictions. If Pat McCrory signs the bill into law, these convicted felons will be legally permitted to carry a concealed handgun into a bar in North Carolina.
In the same bill, the legislature also permits guns on playgrounds, at parades and in funeral processions. Perhaps, gun owners have reason to be especially pleased with the right to carry at a funeral procession, because after a Saturday night at the club goes awry, they may find themselves attending a funeral for a fallen buddy. After your friend gets gunned down after a bar room brawl turns deadly, the best way to honor him is to bring a gun to his funeral. You had just better hope they are not serving alcohol.

‘Responsible Gun Owner’ Opens Fire On Car Full Of Kids Because Dad Tried To Turn Around In Her Driveway

Paranoia Strikes Deep 

Maybe she thought she was in Florida. Times-News shares the story: "'We got out of there pretty well as fast as we could. I still don’t really know what her problem was. I don’t know what’s happened to her in the past, but me, my wife and five kids weren’t doing anything wrong. I know you can’t shoot at somebody for turning around in your driveway.'" 

 

Margie Rhea Ramey’s mugshot photo

You know how sometimes you get lost and you just don’t have anywhere to turn around except by using someone’s driveway? Well, don’t ever let that happen to you in the backwoods of Tennessee.
Oscar Scott and his family of seven decided to go out for a nice Sunday visit to Bays Mountain Park in northeastern Tennessee. When it was time to go home, they thought it’d be nice to take the scenic route. After enjoying some scenery, they came across Bays Mountain Road and took it, curious to see if it would take them back to the park. After going a ways down the road, they noticed that the road became very narrow and turned in to what Scott described as “an old log road.” Figuring it was best to turn around, he put the car in reverse, and chaos ensued.
Margie Rhea Ramey saw the car go into reverse from her front porch, where she’d been sitting with a few other people. Sick of people who were “tearing up her driveway,” Margie started yelling. Before they even touched her driveway, Scott’s son asked “Does she got a gun?” and Margie opened fire on the SUV carrying five children, ages four to twelve. She fired two shots, one hitting close to where the children were seated in the car. Scott’s wife yelled to her that they were simply turning around, but ol’ Margie wasn’t having it. Scott put pedal to the metal and got them out of there as fast as he could and called the police.
Ramey was arrested and released on a $1,000 bond Sunday night. She is charged with seven counts of reckless endangerment.
When a little old lady has a gun to defend herself and her home, that’s fine. When she uses that gun to keep people off her driveway like the old man who shakes his cane telling those kids to get off his lawn, then we have a problem. This is not ‘responsible gun ownership’ by any stretch of the imagination. This is an angry old lady who decided to take it out on a car full of kids. But, you see, this is ‘Murica, land of the free-to-have-a-gun-even-though-you’re-a-batshit-crazy-psycho-idiot-with-no-regard-for-human-life.
‘Murica, where the motto is ‘Fuck you, I’ve got mine.’

Attention Gun Nuts

NSA: We lack the capability to search our own email

Just the News

The NSA turned down a ProPublica Freedom of Information Act request because it says it lacks the ability to search all the email within its internal network, so it can't answer a question like "What conversations took place between the NSA and National Geographic in the lead-up to a positive story about the Agency?" It can only search one user's mail at a time, not all 30,000 NSA employees.

"There's no central method to search an email at this time with the way our records are set up, unfortunately," NSA Freedom of Information Act officer Cindy Blacker told me last week.
The system is “a little antiquated and archaic," she added.

NSA Says It Can’t Search Its Own Emails

Eolas, the grandaddy of patent trolls, has its ass handed to it by a court, finally

Just the News

After a reign of terror lasting nearly two decades, the patent troll Eolas has been brought low. Its bullshit patent on "interactive features" of the Web -- which was filed six years after Tim Berners-Lee actually invented the stuff it laid claim to -- was used to suck millions out of companies from Microsoft to Yahoo and Amazon. A judge has ruled what everyone knew -- the patents were without merit and the lawsuits were just money-spinners for "inventors" whose only product was litigation. Good riddance, Eolas, and see you in Hell.

Under Doyle's conception of his own invention, practically any modern website owed him royalties. Playing a video online or rotating an image on a shopping website were "interactive" features that infringed his patents.
And unlike many "patent trolls" who simply settle for settlements just under the cost of litigation, Doyle's company had the chops, the lawyers, and the early filing date needed to extract tens of millions of dollars from the accused companies.
Eolas had kept filing lawsuits even after its trial loss, with cases against Disney, ESPN, ABC, Facebook, and Wal-Mart on hold awaiting the outcome of this appeal; those are all but doomed. Those lawsuits had asserted the two invalidated patents as well as two new ones, but the two newer patents both incorporate Eolas' first patent.

The Web’s longest nightmare ends: Eolas patents are dead on appeal

TV station that aired racist joke-names for Asiana crash pilots now misusing copyright to censor evidence of its stupidity

Idiocy Abounds

KTVU, the San Francisco TV station that displayed a bunch of jokey, racist pilot names on a newscast about the Asiana crash at SFO, is now misusing copyright law to censor clips that record its mistake for posterity. They say that "everyone has seen the clips" and that it was an "accidental mistake" (as opposed to all those deliberate mistakes), and that this somehow justifies multiple acts of copyfraud against services around the Internet and their users. As always, Techdirt brings the scathing critique:

First things first. If you're not taking it down for copyright reasons, then why the hell are you using the DMCA takedown system? Noah H. Webster, it's got "COPYRIGHT" right in the frickin' name! Wouldn't a polite note to the YouTube account holders stating the above accomplish the same thing (i.e., a minimal level of compliance)?
As for the arguing it should be removed because "most people have seen it," I don't even know where to go with that. Continuing to show the video isn't "offensive." Only the original act is. Pretending this has something to do with making amends for an earlier error is just kind of sad, especially when the station manager tries to drag viewers into his Shame Circle with "thoughtless repetition of the video by others."

TV Station Issues DMCA Takedowns On Videos Of Its Fake Asian Pilot Names Debacle

Goths of Kenya

Lifestyles

Middle-class Kenyan teens are inventing a local version of goth subculture, and are at the center of a moral panic about kids-gone-wild -- according to an article in Think Africa Press. The article is shy on details or photographic evidence, but I hope its true about the subculture (and not about the moral panic). Anyone have more evidence of this?

The negative public image of the goth scene also extends beyond the general public and is apparent in the attitudes of local authorities, at times with dramatic consequences. David used to have long hair, another way to stand out in a country where men tend to wear it very short. A couple of weeks before I met him, he was walking in town at dusk, waiting for the bus back to Nakuru, when a police car pulled over in front of him. The police approached him and asked to see his passport, which he was not carrying, before they accused him of looking like ‘an al-Shabaab’ – a Somali militant Islamist group responsible for several terrorist attacks in the region.
David denied this, stating that he was a Kenyan. The police then challenged him as to why he had untidy hair and facial piercings, preposterously claiming that these are hallmarks of Somali terrorists. They put him in their car and drove him to a nearby barber where they forced him to shave his head. They said that this would "stop confusing them", and they told him to "dress like a decent person" in future.
When I first met David one of the first things I asked was whether he wore his preferred clothes all the time. I asked most of the goths this question and generally they admitted to travelling incognito, blending into the crowd. David, however, looked vaguely insulted at my question before replying, simply, “Me, I even wear this in Church”.

A Day in the Life of a Kenyan Goth

Ziggy

How Credit Card Numbers are Determined

For Your Information

If you've been around for a while, you probably know that all Mastercard credit cards start with 5, and all Visa cards start with 4. Beyond that, there's more math than you realized in credit card numbers. They are not randomly generated. For example, the last number is what's called a "check digit." It's there to make sure the other numbers are correct.

You don’t select this last digit, it is deterministic. The exact mathematic formula for its generation was invented by Hans Peter Luhn, an engineer at IBM in 1954. Originally patented, the algorithm is now in the public domain and a Worldwide standard ISO/IEC 7812-1
  
Obviously, with just a single check digit, not all errors can be detected (there’s a one in ten chance of a random number having the correct check digit), but the Luhn algorithm is clever in that it detects any single error (getting a single digit wrong), such as swapping the 9 with a 6 in the above example. It also detects almost all* pair-wise switching of two adjacent numbers. These errors are typical common errors people make when transcribing card numbers, so the check digit does a good thing.

An added side benefit is that, as discussed above, there is only a one in ten chance that a randomly generated number has the correct check digit. This provides a small amount of protection from hackers or poorly educated crooks who might attempt to randomly generate and guess credit card numbers.

See the formula for the check digit in action at DataGenetics, and more about how credit card numbers work: Here.

Jane Austen Banknote

Now that's Interesting

After an outcry of protest that the banknotes of the British currency are mostly filled with faces of men, the Bank of England is going to release a new £10 note featuring Jane Austen:

Jane Austen certainly merits a place in the select group of historical figures to appear on our banknotes. Her novels have an enduring and universal appeal and she is recognised as one of the greatest writers in English literature," [Mark Carney] the new governor said.

Pound and Prejudice, it seems: More

The World's Most Beautiful Libraries

For Your Information

 This one above is the Trinity College Library in Dublin, Ireland:

Aside from being absolutely gorgeous, with two story dark wooden arches, this is also the largest library in all of Ireland. It serves as the country’s copyright library, where a copy of all new books and periodicals must be sent when they apply for copyright protection. The library is also home to the famous Book of Kells, an illuminated manuscript created by Celtic monks around the year 800.

 More

There Are Only 2 Escalators in Wyoming

For Your Information

In the 97,100 square miles that constitute the State of Wyoming, there are only two escalators: one at a mall in Jackson and another at an airport in Casper. That's it. Megan Garber of The Atlantic explains why:

Escalators may be magical machines, the stuff of literature and comedy and epic, epic poetry; they are also, often, less practical than their fellow vertical people-movers. "There are code issues involved with escalators, which make them somewhat less popular," Mason noted. "The code does not want openings between adjacent floors that are unprotected." Say there's a fire: stairways offer people enclosed ways to escape buildings, while escalators generally don't. If you're an engineer thinking about the best ways to move people between floors, escalators often lose the contest. Plus, escalators tend to be more expensive to install and maintain than their counterparts.
Whereas "elevators," Mason said, "are pretty much foolproof."
The dearth of escalators in Wyoming could also have to do with the particularities of the state's buildings themselves. "I think a lot of it has to do with some of the buildings being older," Sue Goodman said -- and older buildings with multiple stories tend to rely on stairways and elevators for their inter-floor transport. Two of the most common settings for escalators are malls and larger airports, and places like Sheridan have neither: their stores tend to be standalone structures. Plus, "in the Great Out West, I think land is probably cheaper," Goodman said. So rather than build up, "we spread out."

More

Mystery of pair of trousers found inside century-old tree

It's A Mystery 

For decades, residents of Shelbyville, Indiana, have heard the story of the "Old Linden Tree." Legend has it, the site of what's now Shelbyville used to house a Miami Indian village. From now on, they'll have a story about some old-fashioned trousers to add to it. On July 16, the employees at Shelby Tire and Auto Care removed a branch from the tree that stands in front of the auto center's parking lot.

When owner Brent Montgomery bought the building 27 years ago, all seven branches were still intact. Until last week, there were four remaining on the 100-plus-year-old tree. The tree has suffered some in the past few decades and had to be trimmed. "The brick wall we built around the tree has moved about a foot in the last year or so," Montgomery said. "When one of my employees stood on the wall, it collapsed." At that point, the leaning branch became a safety concern, so he decided to cut it down, he said.

"About halfway up the tree, there was about an eight-foot hollow patch," Montgomery said. "I was standing underneath it looking up and I said, ‘Well what's that?'" He said it looked like a brown bag from the ground, but when he got a closer look, he realized it was actually a pair of pants. Very old pants. "It's not like there's a knot where someone might have stuck them in there," Montgomery said. "They grew in it." Grover Museum Director Candy Miller rushed to see the pants, which she described as "very coarse."

The bottoms, which the local history authority claims were probably sewn during the 1800s, have a button but no zipper. The letters "HCRAFT" can be made out on the small, rusted button, but the rest is faded. The pants, which are still connected to the tree, are stained with what looks to be white paint. "We may solve a mystery here. We need to solve the mystery," Miller said. Montgomery agrees, which is why he reached out to her. "Somebody lost their pants and I don't know why," Montgomery joked.

Full story here.

Random Photos

Coastal Antarctic permafrost melting faster than expected

It's Only The Environment After All

Coastal Antarctic permafrost melting faster than expected

For the first time, scientists have documented an acceleration in the melt rate of permafrost, or ground ice, in a section of Antarctica where the ice had been considered stable. The melt rates are comparable [...]

Ancient snowfall likely carved Martian valleys

Scientific Minds Want To Know

Ancient snowfall likely carved Martian valleys

Valley networks branching across the Martian surface leave little doubt that water once flowed on the Red Planet. But where that ancient water came from — whether it bubbled up from underground or fell as [...]

Does dangerous Middle East coronavirus have an African origin?

Scientific Minds Want To Know

Does dangerous Middle East coronavirus have an African origin?

The MERS-coronavirus is regarded as a dangerous novel pathogen: Almost 50 people have died from infection with the virus since it was first discovered in 2012. To date all cases are connected with the Arabian [...]

Post-Biological Aliens

Scientific Minds Want To Know

While we speculate on what biological forms any extraterrestrials may take, several experts believe that we are more likely to encounter advanced forms that can reach out to us. Maybe even artificial intelligence. When any intelligent species reaches the point of space travel, it shouldn't be too long -on a cosmic scale- before they can build machines that are smart enough to both replicate and improve themselves. And travel through space.

“If we build a machine with the intellectual capability of one human, then within 5 years, its successor is more intelligent than all humanity combined,” says Seth Shostak, SETI chief astronomer. “Once any society invents the technology that could put them in touch with the cosmos, they are at most only a few hundred years away from changing their own paradigm of sentience to artificial intelligence,” he says.

ET machines would be infinitely more intelligent and durable than the biological intelligence that created them. Intelligent machines would be immortal, and would not need to exist in the carbon-friendly “Goldilocks Zones” current SETI searches focus on. An AI could self-direct its own evolution, each "upgrade" would be created with the sum total of its predecessor’s knowledge preloaded.

Read what other minds are thinking along these lines at The Daily Galaxy.

Extraordinary trout have tolerance to filthy water

Animal News

Extraordinary trout have tolerance to filthy water

New research from the University of Exeter and King’s College London has shown how a population of brown trout can survive in the contaminated waters of the River Hayle in Cornwall where metal concentrations are [...]

Dolphins have names

Animal News

Rebecca Morelle: "Research has revealed that the marine mammals use a unique whistle to identify each other. A team from the University of St Andrews in Scotland found that when the animals hear their own call played back to them, they respond." 

Animal Pictures

The Daily Drift

The Daily Drift

 

Damn, Straight!

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Today in History

326		Emperor Constantine refuses to carry out traditional pagan sacrifices.
1394		Charles VI of France issues a decree for the general expulsion of Jews from France.
1564		Maximillian II becomes emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.
1587		Hideyoshi bans Christianity in Japan and orders all Christians to leave.
1759		British forces defeat a French army at Fort Niagara in Canada.
1799		On his way back from Syria, Napoleon Bonaparte defeats the Ottomans at Aboukir, Egypt.
1814		British and American forces fight each other to a standoff at Lundy's Lane, Canada.
1845		China grants Belgium equal trading rights with Britain, France and the United States.
1867		President Andrew Johnson signs an act creating the territory of Wyoming.
1850		Gold is discovered in the Rogue River in Oregon, extending the quest for gold up the Pacific coast.
1861		The Crittenden Resolution, calling for the American Civil War to be fought to preserve the Union and not for slavery, is passed by Congress.
1894		Japanese forces sink the British steamer Kowshing which was bringing Chinese reinforcements to Korea.
1909		French aviator Louis Bleriot becomes the first man to fly across the English Channel in an airplane.
1914		Russia declares that it will act to protect Serbian sovereignty.
1924		Greece announces the deportation of 50,000 Armenians.
1934		Austrian chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss is shot and killed by Nazis.
1941		The U.S. government freezes Japanese and Chinese assets.
1943		Italian Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini is overthrown in a coup.
1944		Allied forces begin the breakthrough of German lines in Normandy.
1978		The first test-tube baby, Louis Brown, is born in Oldham, England.