March 22nd, 2015 • 2h 55m
Shownotes
Every new episode of No Agenda is accompanied by a comprehensive list of shownotes curated by Adam while preparing for the show. Clips played by the hosts during the show can also be found here.
TODAY
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Global Entry finger print scan vs iPhone 6 setup.
Yet GE reader time is only a second or two.
Secondary step on 'No to all' option
Are you sure?
'Notorious' felon was cleared for faster boarding at airports | TheHill
Thu, 19 Mar 2015 22:57
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) approved a convicted felon who is a former member of a domestic terrorist organization for expedited airport security last year, according to a report released this week by the Department of Homeland Security's inspector general.
The report alleges that the TSA cleared the June 2014 passenger, whose name was redacted, despite the fact that the traveler had not submitted paperwork for its PreCheck trusted passenger program. The traveler was recognized by security agents at the airport.
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''In this circumstance, the [Transportation Security Officer] recognized the sufficiently notorious convicted felon based on media coverage, and verified the traveler's identity documents. Upon scanning the traveler's boarding pass, the TSA received a TSA PreCheck eligibility notification,'' the report said. ''However the TSO knew of the traveler's ... disqualifying criminal convictions,'' the report continued. ''The TSO followed standard operating procedures and reported this to the supervisory TSO who then directed the TSO to take no further action and allow the traveler through the TSA PreCheck lane.''
The Homeland Security inspector general's report said the passenger, who it described as ''a former member of a domestic terrorist group,'' was cleared through the TSA's Secure Flight program, which the agency says is supposed to match passengers' boarding documents with federal No-Fly Lists.
''Secure Flight is a behind-the-scenes program that enhances the security of domestic and international commercial air travel through the use of improved watch list matching,'' the agency says about the Secure Flight program on its website.
''Collecting additional passenger data improves the travel experience for all airline passengers, including those who have been misidentified in the past,'' the post continued. ''When passengers travel, they are required to provide the [background data] to the airline. The airline submits this information to Secure Flight, which uses it to perform watch list matching. This serves to prevent individuals on the No Fly List from boarding an aircraft and to identify individuals on the Selectee List for enhanced screening.''
The inspector general's report said the Secure Flight program failed to flag a passenger who was "involved in numerous felonious criminal activities" and served a multiple-year prison sentence.
Lawmakers said the report shows serious vulnerabilities exist within the TSA's expedited screening programs.
''While I understand that expedited screening is an interest of the traveling public, it should not be employed at the expense of security,'' Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) said in a statement.
''This new report comes just after a December Government Accountability Office report on PreCheck and problems with the managed inclusion program,'' Thompson continued. ''Both these reports illustrate shortcomings with the methods TSA uses to identify low risk passengers and demand a legislative response.''
Thompson added he is ''preparing legislation to ensure that the approach TSA uses to identify low-risk passengers does not create security gaps.''
TSA officials defended the expedited screening programs, which are part of a broad series of ''risk-based initiatives'' that have been touted as a sea change in U.S. airport security because they direct all airport security officials to focus on passengers who are most likely to pose threats to flights.
''TSA continues to enhance its layered security approach through state-of-the-art technologies, improved passenger identification techniques and trusted traveler programs, and best practices to strengthen transportation security across all modes of transportation,'' the agency said in a statement that was provided to The Hill on Thursday evening.
''All passengers, including those with TSA PreCheck on boarding passes, are subject to a robust security approach that employs multiple layers of security, both seen and unseen,'' the agency's statement continued. ''Together, these layers provide enhanced security and a stronger, more protected transportation system for the traveling public.''
AP News : Felon using expedited airport security lane renews concerns
Sun, 22 Mar 2015 01:10
By ALICIA A. CALDWELLPublished: YesterdayWASHINGTON (AP) - A key lawmaker raised questions about air travel security after a convicted felon and former member of a domestic terrorist organization was able to use an expedited airport security line.
Rep. Bennie Thompson, the senior Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee, said the disclosure of June 29, 2014 incident highlights shortcomings in how the Transportation Security Administration identifies low-risk passengers as well as the need for Congress to respond.
The Homeland Security Department's inspector general announced Thursday that a felon convicted of murder and explosives-related offenses was allowed to pass through the TSA's PreCheck security lane designed for passengers who are considered a low security risk.
TSA's PreCheck lanes can be accessed by airline passengers who enroll in the program and submit to a background check to ensure they present a low risk to security. But TSA also selects some passengers for the expedited screening based on biographical data provided to airlines, including a passenger's name and date of birth.
In the case of the convicted felon, he was approved for the expedited security lane despite his criminal history. A TSA officer who checked his boarding pass recognized him as a convicted criminal from news reports, the Inspector General found. When a supervisor was alerted, the officer was instructed to let the passenger go through the faster line, anyway.
The Inspector General's report did not say where the incident occurred or provide any other details about the man's convictions or former affiliation with a domestic terrorist group.
In a statement issued late Thursday, the TSA said it "takes its responsibility for protecting the traveling public very seriously."
It said, "All passengers, including those with TSA PreCheck on boarding passes, are subject to a robust security approach that employs multiple layers of security, both seen and unseen."
Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat, said he plans to introduce legislation to ensure travelers like the convicted felon aren't able to access expedited security lanes at airports.
"While I understand that expedited screening is an interest of the traveling public, it should not be employed at the expense of security," Thompson said.
In December, a Government Accountability Office report highlighted the need for TSA to evaluate security surrounding the use of expedited screening for passengers not preapproved for the program.
The inspector general's office, in its report made public Friday, recommended that TSA modify its procedures to allow TSA officers and supervisors to refer passengers back to a regular screening line if don't believe they should be eligible for the expedited screening. A second recommendation was redacted from the report.
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Follow Alicia A. Caldwell on Twitter at www.twitter.com/acaldwellap
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Everyone @ SXSW is hitting up the Über drivers for weed.
Über paying $2500/day for airport rights, manipulated driver's ability to cruise through sand receive pickup requests within the GPS 'perimeter'
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We show the emperor has no clothes
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WDSD 2015 | World Down Syndrome Day
Sat, 21 Mar 2015 23:27
21 March 2015 marks the 10th anniversary of World Down Syndrome Day and each year the voice of people with Down syndrome, and those who live and work with them, grows louder.
Down Syndrome International encourages our friends all over the world to choose your own activities and events to help raise awareness of what Down syndrome is, what it means to have Down syndrome, and how people with Down syndrome play a vital role in our lives and communities. We will share your WDSD World Events on our dedicated WDSD website in a single global meeting place.
For WDSD 2015, DSi will focus on:
'My Opportunities, My Choices' '' Enjoying Full and Equal Rights and the Role of FamiliesDownload our 'My Opportunites, My Choices' Information Leaflet.
People with Down syndrome, on an equal basis with other people, must be able to enjoy full and equal rights, both as children and adults with 'opportunities' and 'choices'.
People with Down syndrome face many challenges as children and adults which may prevent them enjoying their basic human rights. Many people often fail to understand that people with Down syndrome are people first, who may require additional support, but should be recognised by society on an equal basis with others, without discrimination on the basis of disability.
Families have a deep personal interest in the well-being of their members with Down syndrome. Empowering families to promote the equal status of their members in society and development is crucial, so that they can provide support, advocate for opportunities and choices and empower people with Down syndrome to express their own views and make their own decisions, as well as advocate for themselves.
For the 10th anniversary of World Down Syndrome Day and in the '21'st anniversary year of the 'International Year of the Family', DSi will focus on the role of families and the positive contribution that they can make towards the enjoyment of full and equal rights for people with Down syndrome.
Our WDSD Global Video Event and WDSD Conference will both explore this important area of focus.
We hope that you will consider joining this campaign and adopting it into your plans for WDSD 2015.
Once again in 2015, we will be inviting everyone across the world to wear LOTS OF SOCKS on 21 March to get people talking about WDSD. You can purchase our LOTS OF SOCKS logo socks and t-shirts, together with WDSD t-shirts, from our WDSD Merchandise online shop.
We are now seeking nominations for the 2015 WDSD Awards and we hope that many of you will join us on our various WDSD Social Media channels.
Whatever you do, we hope together that we will create a very loud single global voice for advocating for the rights, inclusion and well being of people with Down syndrome on 21 March.
Here are some resources available to download:
World Down Syndrome Day - General Poster - 2015
World Down Syndrome Day - Family Poster - 2015
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JCD where the C stands for Conjugal visits
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Do kids make rock candy anymore
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'Best' UK eclipse in age of selfies and social falls short '-- the reported.ly team '-- Medium
Sun, 22 Mar 2015 12:59
ESA's Sun-watching Proba-2 minisatellite had a ringside seat from orbit. Photo: ESA
The good, the bad, the cloud cover (bear with us, there are some decent shots below).
Londoners were not impressed, innit?
Console yourself with a time lapse of ducks wading.
Nonplussed in Nantes.
An apparition of Varoufakis' finger over Germany.
The real deal in the Faroe Islands. Situated between Norway, Iceland and Scotland, it was the only terrain in northern Europe to experience a total eclipse Friday morning. Hundreds of tourists travelled to the archipelago to catch a glimpse. Momentary breaks in cloud cover gave glimpses of the eclipse. Smartphones were at hand to time-lapse film the island being plunged into darkness.
Yes, satellites had the hot seats. Thanks ESA, and Astro Sam in the ISS.
Here's the path the eclipse was taking over northern parts.
And the smudge it cast.
A break in the cloud over Dublin gave Reported.ly's bureau this view.
And of course, the obligatory faking of artwork as photography.
And the downright weird. People.
But stay safe kids.
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Stec on the easter donation amount newsletter
Contrary to Dvorak Sunday newsletter ... The date of Easter and Passover for that matter is not a convoluted formula. It is a simple measure determined by the day of the full moon.
Just blame the Jews who developed the formula before the Pope stole it. And for that matter the Orthodox Greeks for being a week later most years and sometimes not. The Greeks were always a pain in the ass. In fact some of my Greek in laws still are.
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Congressional Dish on The Stream
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Donate - ANSWER Coalition
Sun, 22 Mar 2015 02:18
Donations to PUF / ANSWER Coalition are processed by our fiscal sponsor, the Progress Unity Fund, a 501(c)(3) organization. You may also make a tax-deductible donation by mailing a check made out to Progress Unity Fund / A.N.S.W.E.R. to the following address:
Progress Unity Fund / A.N.S.W.E.R.617 Florida Ave. NW, lower levelWashington, DC 20001
If you would like to make recurring monthly donation please click here: https://answercoalition.nationbuilder.com/donate_monthly
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Windex
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Theodore Kasczinski "Industrial Society and Its Future"
Smith Mundt Act - A reminder that you are living in a Smith-Mudt Act repealed media landscape
NDAA and Overturning of Smith-Mundt Act
The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2013 (NDAA) allows for materials produced by the State Department and the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) to be released within U.S. borders and strikes down a long-time ban on the dissemination of such material in the country.[14][15][16]
Propaganda in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Sun, 21 Sep 2014 15:00
Propaganda in the United States is propaganda spread by government and media entities within the United States. Propaganda is information, ideas, or rumors deliberately spread widely to influence opinions. Propaganda is not only in advertising; it is also in radio, newspaper, posters, books, and anything else that might be sent out to the widespread public.
Domestic[edit]World War I[edit]The first large-scale use of propaganda by the U.S. government came during World War I. The government enlisted the help of citizens and children to help promote war bonds and stamps to help stimulate the economy. To keep the prices of war supplies down, the U.S. government produced posters that encouraged people to reduce waste and grow their own vegetables in "victory gardens." The public skepticism that was generated by the heavy-handed tactics of the Committee on Public Information would lead the postwar government to officially abandon the use of propaganda.[1]
World War II[edit]During World War II the U.S. officially had no propaganda, but the Roosevelt government used means to circumvent this official line. One such propaganda tool was the publicly owned but government funded Writers' War Board (WWB). The activities of the WWB were so extensive that it has been called the "greatest propaganda machine in history".[1]Why We Fight is a famous series of US government propaganda films made to justify US involvement in World War II.
In 1944 (lasting until 1948) prominent US policy makers launched a domestic propaganda campaign aimed at convincing the U.S. public to agree to a harsh peace for the German people, for example by removing the common view of the German people and the Nazi party as separate entities.[2] The core in this campaign was the Writers' War Board which was closely associated with the Roosevelt administration.[2]
Another means was the United States Office of War Information that Roosevelt established in June 1942, whose mandate was to promote understanding of the war policies under the director Elmer Davies. It dealt with posters, press, movies, exhibitions, and produced often slanted material conforming to US wartime purposes. Other large and influential non-governmental organizations during the war and immediate post war period were the Society for the Prevention of World War III and the Council on Books in Wartime.
Cold War[edit]During the Cold War, the U.S. government produced vast amounts of propaganda against communism and the Soviet bloc. Much of this propaganda was directed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation under J. Edgar Hoover, who himself wrote the anti-communist tract Masters of Deceit. The FBI's COINTELPRO arm solicited journalists to produce fake news items discrediting communists and affiliated groups, such as H. Bruce Franklin and the Venceremos Organization.
War on Drugs[edit]The National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign, originally established by the National Narcotics Leadership Act of 1988,[3][4] but now conducted by the Office of National Drug Control Policy under the Drug-Free Media Campaign Act of 1998,[5] is a domestic propaganda campaign designed to "influence the attitudes of the public and the news media with respect to drug abuse" and for "reducing and preventing drug abuse among young people in the United States".[6][7] The Media Campaign cooperates with the Partnership for a Drug-Free America and other government and non-government organizations.[8]
Iraq War[edit]In early 2002, the U.S. Department of Defense launched an information operation, colloquially referred to as the Pentagon military analyst program.[9] The goal of the operation is "to spread the administrations's talking points on Iraq by briefing ... retired commanders for network and cable television appearances," where they have been presented as independent analysts.[10] On 22 May 2008, after this program was revealed in the New York Times, the House passed an amendment that would make permanent a domestic propaganda ban that until now has been enacted annually in the military authorization bill.[11]
The Shared values initiative was a public relations campaign that was intended to sell a "new" America to Muslims around the world by showing that American Muslims were living happily and freely, without persecution, in post-9/11 America.[12] Funded by the United States Department of State, the campaign created a public relations front group known as Council of American Muslims for Understanding (CAMU). The campaign was divided in phases; the first of which consisted of five mini-documentaries for television, radio, and print with shared values messages for key Muslim countries.[13]
NDAA and Overturning of Smith-Mundt Act[edit]The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2013 (NDAA) allows for materials produced by the State Department and the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) to be released within U.S. borders and strikes down a long-time ban on the dissemination of such material in the country.[14][15][16]
Ad Council[edit]The Ad Council, an American non-profit organization that distributes public service announcements on behalf of various private and federal government agency sponsors, has been labeled as "little more than a domestic propaganda arm of the federal government" given the Ad Council's historically close collaboration with the President of the United States and the federal government.[17]
International[edit]Through several international broadcasting operations, the US disseminates American cultural information, official positions on international affairs, and daily summaries of international news. These operations fall under the International Broadcasting Bureau, the successor of the United States Information Agency, established in 1953. IBB's operations include Voice of America, Radio Liberty, Alhurra and other programs. They broadcast mainly to countries where the United States finds that information about international events is limited, either due to poor infrastructure or government censorship. The Smith-Mundt Act prohibits the Voice of America from disseminating information to US citizens that was produced specifically for a foreign audience.
During the Cold War the US ran covert propaganda campaigns in countries that appeared likely to become Soviet satellites, such as Italy, Afghanistan, and Chile.
Recently The Pentagon announced the creation of a new unit aimed at spreading propaganda about supposedly "inaccurate" stories being spread about the Iraq War. These "inaccuracies" have been blamed on the enemy trying to decrease support for the war. Donald Rumsfeld has been quoted as saying these stories are something that keeps him up at night.[18]
Psychological operations[edit]The US military defines psychological operations, or PSYOP, as:
planned operations to convey selected information and indicators to foreign audiences to influence the emotions, motives, objective reasoning, and ultimately the behavior of foreign governments, organizations, groups, and individuals.[19]
The Smith-Mundt Act, adopted in 1948, explicitly forbids information and psychological operations aimed at the US public.[20][21][22] Nevertheless, the current easy access to news and information from around the globe, makes it difficult to guarantee PSYOP programs do not reach the US public. Or, in the words of Army Col. James A. Treadwell, who commanded the U.S. military psyops unit in Iraq in 2003, in the Washington Post:
There's always going to be a certain amount of bleed-over with the global information environment.[23]
Agence France Presse reported on U.S. propaganda campaigns that:
The Pentagon acknowledged in a newly declassified document that the US public is increasingly exposed to propaganda disseminated overseas in psychological operations.[24]
Former US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld approved the document referred to, which is titled "Information Operations Roadmap." [22][24] The document acknowledges the Smith-Mundt Act, but fails to offer any way of limiting the effect PSYOP programs have on domestic audiences.[20][21][25]
Several incidents in 2003 were documented by Sam Gardiner, a retired Air Force colonel, which he saw as information-warfare campaigns that were intended for "foreign populations and the American public." Truth from These Podia,[26] as the treatise was called, reported that the way the Iraq war was fought resembled a political campaign, stressing the message instead of the truth.[22]
See also[edit]References[edit]^ abThomas Howell, The Writers' War Board: U.S. Domestic Propaganda in World War II, Historian, Volume 59 Issue 4, Pages 795 - 813^ abSteven Casey, (2005), The Campaign to sell a harsh peace for Germany to the American public, 1944 - 1948, [online]. London: LSE Research Online. [Available online at http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/archive/00000736] Originally published in History, 90 (297). pp. 62-92 (2005) Blackwell Publishing^National Narcotics Leadership Act of 1988 of the Anti''Drug Abuse Act of 1988, Pub.L. 100''706, 102 Stat. 4181, enacted November 18, 1988^Gamboa, Anthony H. (January 4, 2005), B-303495, Office of National Drug Control Policy '-- Video News Release, Government Accountability Office, footnote 6, page 3 ^Drug-Free Media Campaign Act of 1998 (Omnibus Consolidated and Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act, 1999), Pub.L. 105''277, 112 Stat. 268, enacted October 21, 1998^Gamboa, Anthony H. (January 4, 2005), B-303495, Office of National Drug Control Policy '-- Video News Release, Government Accountability Office, pp. 9''10 ^Drug-Free Media Campaign Act of 1998 of the Omnibus Consolidated and Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act, 1999, Pub.L. 105''277, 112 Stat. 268, enacted October 21, 1998^Office of National Drug Control Policy Reauthorization Act of 2006, Pub.L. 109''469, 120 Stat. 3501, enacted December 29, 2006, codified at 21 U.S.C. § 1708^Barstow, David (2008-04-20). "Message Machine: Behind Analysts, the Pentagon's Hidden Hand". New York Times. ^Sessions, David (2008-04-20). "Onward T.V. Soldiers: The New York Times exposes a multi-armed Pentagon message machine". Slate. ^Barstow, David (2008-05-24). "2 Inquiries Set on Pentagon Publicity Effort". New York Times. ^Rampton, Sheldon (October 17, 2007). "Shared Values Revisited". Center for Media and Democracy. ^"U.S. Reaches Out to Muslim World with Shared Values Initiative". America.gov. January 16, 2003.
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Weekly Hooker Report
NC Ethics Commission: Sex acts don't violate lobbyist gift ban :: WRAL.com
Sun, 22 Mar 2015 02:28
By Mark Binker
Raleigh, N.C. '-- Sexual acts between lobbyists and a state official covered by North Carolina's state ethics act do not constitute a "reportable expenditure" or "things of value," according to a ruling the State Ethics Commission published the Friday before Valentine's Day.
The opinion, penned at the request of the Secretary of State's Lobbying Compliance Division, added that such relationships would be unlikely to trigger the state's "goodwill lobbying" registration requirements.
"Consensual sexual relationships do not have monetary value and therefore are not reportable as gifts or 'reportable expenditure made for lobbying,'" the opinion reads. "However, a lobbyist or lobbyist principal's provision of paid prostitution services by a third party to a designated individual could constitute a gift or thing of value, albeit an illegal one, depending on the particular facts."
The opinion's authors say the Secretary or State's Office did not provide a specific set of facts and that the original inquiry was "hypothetical in context" and therefore the response was limited.
Lobbyists are required to report anything worth more than $10 per day that they give to a person covered by the state ethics act or a family member.
Opinions issued by the Ethics Commission are generally a good deal more banal, dealing with subjects such as under what circumstances it is legal for state officials to accept scholarships to conferences or whether attending a certain reception might pose a violation for lawmakers. North Carolina's current ethics regimen was put in place partly as a reaction to the scandal that led to the 2007 conviction of former Democratic state House Speaker Jim Black, who was snared illegally soliciting and channeling campaign contributions.
While there have been minor sex scandals in recent years '' two staffers in former Republican state House Speaker Thom Tillis' office lost their jobs in 2012 due to relationships with lobbyists '' episodes that have led to the convictions of elected officials have dealt with more traditional forms of bribery involving cash, trips and the like.
Joal Broun, the Secretary of State's lobbying compliance director, declined to comment on why she requested the ethics opinion, deferring questions to the Secretary of State's spokeswoman Liz Proctor.
Proctor said that a private attorney posed the question to the Secretary of State's Office last in 2014.
"We agreed that the question needed to be decided," she said. Therefore, the office submitted the question to the Ethics Commission.
Proctor declined to provide the Secretary of State's original request to the commission or offer any details as to why the request was made, citing an Attorney General's Office opinion that requests for such advice are confidential.
"We are still reviewing the commission's opinion," she said.
WRAL News obtained a copy of the four-page request for an opinion from another source. Parts of it are graphic, describing specific sexual acts that might be at issue, but it does not implicate a particular set of people or specify a particular set of facts.
It does ask five questions, including, "Are sexual favors or sexual acts that a lobbyist or a lobbyist principal provides not for the purpose of lobbying a gift?" That question appears to explore whether ongoing dating relationships, and not just quid pro quo situations, could somehow violate the gift ban.
A footnote to the opinion does note, "This interpretation does not address the legal, moral, or other ramifications of two adults not married to one another engaging in consensual sexual relations with one another. Such considerations are beyond both the scope of this request and the Commission's jurisdiction. This is solely an interpretation and application of the Ethics Act and Lobbying Law based on extremely limited information."
Hillary 2016
Clinton's will startt whacking people any tie now I believe
Summary of Hait & The Clintons by Engdahl
Leading Haitian lawyer and a genuine
human rights activist, Ezili Dantò, charges that UN Envoy to Haiti, Bill
Clinton as head of the Haitian relief fund was responsible for some $6
billion of international relief aid received. “Less than 1% of this
amount made it to the Haitian government. Bill Clinton had total control
of the balance.” She adds, “Hillary and Bill Clinton ‘opened Haiti’ as
their private asset to liquidate. They used the resources of the World
Bank, the State Department, USAID, the UN, the Private Military Security
Contractors, the US military, and the Fed’s passport and visa issuance
capabilities. They got kickbacks called ‘donations’ from anyone who
wished to buy from them a piece of Haiti lands, oil, iridium, uranium or
gold. The Clintons have used governmental power to conduct their
private business and called it ‘helping poor Haitians.’”
Dantò adds that Bill Clinton made no
attempt to conceal his Haiti aid corruption. Neither did US Secretary of
State Hillary Clinton: “They pushed their own Haiti staff members into
nominal positions of power to rubber stamp their edicts. Haiti Prime
Minister Gary Conille, who succeeded Jean Max Bellerive, worked as chief
of staff for Bill Clinton and as a UN development expert.
“Cheryl Mills, another Clinton staffer
named in the Clinton “email-gate” scandal and who today is on the board
of the Clinton Foundation, also served as the United States’
representative on the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission (IHRC).
First appeared: http://journal-neo.org/2015/03/20/hillary-the-new-york-times-will-never-tell-us-this/
How the Clintons' Haiti development plans succeed '-- and disappoint - The Washington Post
Sun, 22 Mar 2015 03:35
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti '-- Deep in the Haitian countryside, peanut farmer Wismith Moricette epitomizes the success of Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton's charitable work: Through an innovative program backed by the Clintons, the 23-year-old has doubled the yield from his one-acre plot. Along with all those peanuts, Moricette said, have come visions of a brighter future for his wife and young son.
Fifty miles away on Haiti's north coast, Anelle Germinal exemplifies another reality of the Clintons' work here: disappointment. The 33-year-old mother of four has been standing in the baking sun every day for months waiting for work in the struggling Caracol Industrial Park, which the Clintons have touted as a model that would change the economy of this impoverished country.
''They said we would have work,'' Germinal said, ''but I have nothing.''
Moricette and Germinal are two faces of the Clintons' increasingly complicated relationship with Haiti, where their high-profile development efforts after a devastating earthquake in 2010 have produced both success and disillusionment.
As Hillary Clinton moves toward a second run for the White House, her family's global charitable work, mostly through the Clinton Foundation, has come under intense scrutiny. The foundation has accepted large donations from corporations and foreign countries, raising concerns that the Clintons are creating conflicts of interest by blurring the lines between their political, business and charitable interests.
The Washington Post reported last month that the foundation's donors include seven foreign governments that contributed millions during Hillary Clinton's tenure as secretary of state. Among those donations was a $500,000 contribution from the Algerian government for earthquake relief in Haiti that the foundation has acknowledged violated the terms of an ethics agreement with the Obama administration.
[Graphic: A vast network for donors]
The Clintons' defenders have dismissed concerns about the donations as political sniping, saying the test of the foundation is not where it gets its money but how it spends it. They said their work has created economic opportunity, improved lives for women and girls, raised health standards and fought the effects of climate change across the developing world.
The work has been especially visible in Haiti, where the Clintons first traveled as young newlyweds in 1975 and where many people credit them with drawing the world's attention immediately after the earthquake, which killed more than 200,000 people.
With former president Clinton assigned by the United Nations to head up the emergency recovery effort and Hillary Clinton guiding official U.S. assistance as secretary of state, the couple helped a relief effort that has included some of the world's richest people, biggest celebrities and most successful businesses. The Clintons also helped mobilize an effort in which international donors pledged $10.4 billion, including $3.9 billion from the United States.
Greg Milne, director of the Clinton Foundation's Haiti Program, said projects include efforts that have helped more than 2,000 small farmers, an artisan-goods company that employs more than 300 people, a fish-farming operation, a cholera treatment center and improvements to schools in some of Haiti's poorest slums.
Clinton supporters also point out that their successes have come amid Haiti's chaotic political situation '-- parliament is not functioning and President Michel Martelly, dogged by scandal, is ruling with virtually no checks on his power '-- which is marked by endemic corruption, weak institutions, poverty, poor public education, terrible roads and other factors that have historically made it extremely difficult for development efforts to succeed.
The country has long had a fraught relationship with foreigners who come to invest and provide aid. Haitians often regard them with gratitude for desperately needed resources and, at the same time, with suspicion that their motives are more to make a profit in Haiti than to help it.
Nevertheless, the Clintons are facing a growing backlash that too little has been accomplished in the past five years and that some of the most high-profile projects they have backed '-- including a just-opened Marriott, another luxury hotel and the industrial park '-- have helped foreign investors and Haiti's wealthy elites more than its poor.
''Bill Clinton is a good guy and well-intentioned, but the people here don't think so '-- they think he's here making money,'' said Leslie Voltaire, a former government official who worked with Clinton on post-earthquake reconstruction. ''There is a lot of resentment about Clinton here. People have not seen results. .'.'. They say that Clinton used Haiti.''
In January, Haitian expatriates picketed the Clinton Foundation's New York headquarters, demanding to know why more progress has not been made with the billions in international aid pledged after the quake.
Said Raymond Joseph, a former Haitian ambassador to the United States: ''People are asking, 'What has Bill Clinton done for us?' ''
[Activist: Haiti redevelopment hasn't been about helping Haitians]
The Clintons' long influence in Haiti is hard to overstate.
As president in 1994, Bill Clinton deployed about 20,000 U.S. troops to Haiti to restore President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who had been ousted in a coup in 1991. Clinton's trade policies as president, which he later called a ''mistake,'' were devastating to Haiti's rice production and made it harder for the country to feed itself.
In 2009, Clinton was named U.N. special envoy for Haiti, and he has visited the country 37 times since then.
After the earthquake, Clinton united with former president George W. Bush to create the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund, which distributed $54.4 million in the two years after the earthquake. Separately, the Clinton Foundation has spent more than $30 million in Haiti and led efforts through the Clinton Global Initiative to persuade private companies to spend vastly more.
''What I think most people don't know, even if they've been on the ground there, is these people are immensely talented,'' Bill Clinton said in a 2010 interview with NPR. ''They have suffered from 200 years of outside and inside abuses and neglect and misgovernment. And a lot of the people who've gone there even to help them in the best of faith have done so in a way that would never have allowed them to support themselves and to lift themselves up. And now there is a true consensus for and determination for a sustainable, comprehensive, long-term, modern society in Haiti. And they can do it.''
But as the initial emergency response has evolved into efforts to ensure Haiti's long-term development, Haitians increasingly complain that the Clintons' most ambitious plans are disconnected from the realities of most people in the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.
For instance, the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund invested more than $2 million in the Royal Oasis hotel, where a sleek suite with hardwood floors costs more than $200 a night and the shops sell $150 designer purses and $120 men's dress shirts.
One recent afternoon, the hotel appeared largely empty, and with tourism hardly booming five years after the quake, locals fear it may be failing. A spokeswoman for Occidental Hotels, the chain that runs the hotel, said that occupancy is up this year and that the project will ''mature in the long run.''
Bill Clinton also introduced Marriott officials to Denis O'Brien, an Irish telecom billionaire who has contributed millions to the Clinton Foundation. The result is a $45 million Marriott hotel that opened this month in central Port-au-Prince. O'Brien said no Clinton money was invested in the project.
The ultra-modern hotel is adjacent to the headquarters of Digicel, a communications giant owned by O'Brien. When The Post visited recently, many, if not most, guests seemed to be foreign businessmen connected to Digicel.
Clinton defenders argue that hotels that cater to well-heeled foreign guests can still buy local products and provide local jobs, and those guests are often involved in business investments or aid projects that benefit the neediest Haitians.
O'Brien said his hotel employs 200 Haitians, is filled with locally purchased art and serves food from Haiti. O'Brien leads the Haiti Action Network, a collection of private businesses that have committed through the Clinton Global Initiative to spend $500 million on projects in Haiti. He and his company just built 150 schools and rebuilt Port-au-Prince's historic Iron Market.
''I don't know any modern leader that has spent more time helping a country and being so effective,'' O'Brien said of Bill Clinton. ''He works like a demon in the developing world. Nobody is doing that. Is Tony Blair doing that?''
Other Clinton-backed projects have not delivered on lofty promises: A 2011 housing expo that cost more than $2 million, including $500,000 from the Clinton Foundation, was supposed to be a model for thousands of new units but instead has resulted in little more than a few dozen abandoned model homes occupied by squatters.
Controversy surrounding the Clintons only deepened with the recent revelation, contained in an upcoming book by Peter Schweizer, that Tony Rodham '-- Hillary Clinton's younger brother '-- serves on the advisory board of a U.S.-based company that in 2012 won one of Haiti's first two gold-mining permits in 50 years. After objection from the Haitian Senate, the permits have been placed on hold.
''Neither Bill Clinton nor the brother of Hillary Clinton are individuals who share the interests of the Haitian people,'' said Samuel Nesner, an anti-mining activist who thinks mining poses great environmental risks and will mainly benefit foreign investors. ''They are part of the elite class who are operating to exploit the Haitian people.''
Clinton Foundation officials said Bill Clinton had been unaware of Rodham's involvement in the mine project. A spokesman for Hillary Clinton said she does not know the chief executive of the mine.
''I strongly believe the Clintons came to Haiti in good faith and they wanted to have an impact,'' said Jean-Max Bellerive, who was Haiti's prime minister at the time of the earthquake and served as co-chairman with Bill Clinton on the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission. (Bellerive is also on the mining company's advisory board.)
But, Bellerive said, the former president was hampered by a ''weak'' staff of American aides who were ''more interested in supporting Clinton than helping Haiti.'' Echoing a common sentiment in Haiti, Bellerive also said Clinton should have listened more carefully to the opinions and needs of ordinary Haitians: ''How do you want a guy coming from Davos or Dubai to get the real feeling for what's happening downstairs?''
Milne, of the Clinton Foundation, said the criticism is wrong and unsurprising.
''President Clinton is one of the most dedicated and highest-profile advocates for Haiti, and he is still engaged while others have moved on,'' he said. ''So it's not surprising that, for some, he is an easy target for natural frustration that the change we all want isn't happening faster.''
Milne said the country has experienced strong economic growth in recent years, with more Haitians employed and more children in school.
''Is Haiti building back better?'' Milne said, using a phrase that the Clintons frequently quote. ''In many ways, yes, though challenges remain.''
Paul Farmer, a doctor whose Partners in Health has helped provide medical care in rural Haiti since the 1980s and whose health network has received more than $1.8 million from the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund for a medical residency program, also praised the Clintons' work. He said he forged partnerships at CGI meetings with private businesses and other charities for a variety of projects he said would not have taken place without the Clinton connection.
He said that by any objective measure, Haiti has been improving, in part because of the Clintons' efforts.
''Is the whole country built back better? I doubt it,'' Farmer said. ''Water insecurity and food insecurity are very pressing problems. But if you look at the health statistics for Haiti .'.'. infant mortality, child mortality '-- they're all improving.''
Still, even some who have benefited from Clinton-backed programs have grown disillusioned.
''I read that Bill Clinton is the most popular politician in America, but he couldn't get elected mayor in Haiti today,'' said Jacky Lumarque, rector of Quisqueya University, a private school that was damaged in the earthquake and received $914,000 from the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund to create an entrepreneurship center.
Lumarque said the program has helped hundreds of Haitians turn their informal street businesses into formal entities that keep records, pay taxes and have potential for growth.
He said it has been a huge success '-- but stands apart from the usual strategy of foreign groups, including the Clintons, who tend to favor projects imposed by well-meaning foreigners that are more ''about Haiti'' than ''for Haiti.''
The entrepreneurship center, Lumarque said, ''is an example of what Clinton can do, in spite of himself.''
[Foreign governments gave millions to Clintons' foundation]
When Bill Clinton came here late last month to help inaugurate the new Marriott, he made a side trip by helicopter to Haiti's central plateau to have a look at a Clinton-backed program that is revolutionizing the peanut-farming industry.
The Acceso Peanut Enterprise Corp. was started with a $1.25 million grant from the Clinton Giustra Enterprise Partnership, which is headed by Bill Clinton and Canadian mining executive and philanthropist Frank Giustra, as well as the charitable foundation of Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim.
Acceso buys feed, fertilizer and fungicide at bulk rates, then sells them to farmers for far less than normal prices. Acceso also hires tractors for farmers who otherwise would be using an ox and plow.
Robert Johnson, an American who runs the program, said the improvements are vastly increasing yields, quality and farmers' profits.
He said Acceso worked with about 1,000 farmers last year and bought about 120 metric tons of peanuts. This year, it expects to triple the number of farmers and buy almost five times as much peanut tonnage.
At least half of Acceso's sales have gone to two large Haitian factories that produce a peanut-based paste that is given to malnourished children. Most of the rest goes to local peanut-butter producers, he said. The program's success, Johnson said, comes from its market-driven approach: It's not a charity, it's a business with a charitable purpose.
''We're building something that is going to be sustainable,'' he said. ''We talk to the farmers. We're not going to just bring in something that someone thought up in Davos.''
The program is branching out into lime-growing, and Clinton visited a site last month where thousands of seedlings are being cultivated by dozens of workers.
Benel Auguste, 32, is one of the small landowners who rented his plot, about a third of an acre, to Acceso to plant limes. ''It's a good idea; it's going to work,'' he said. ''We know limes and we need them. We can do this.''
The Clintons also were enthusiastic backers of the Caracol Industrial Park, which was built on 600 acres of farmland just east of the port city Cap-Haitien.
They agreed with economists, particularly Oxford University development specialist Paul Collier, who concluded that Haiti is an ideal place to create mass jobs in garment factories because of its proximity to the United States, favorable trade agreements and cheap labor.
The Clintons helped Haitian officials identify Sae-A Trading Co., which operates factories across the developing world and sews garments for giants such as Target, Gap and Wal-Mart, as a potential major investor.
As secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, along with top aide Cheryl Mills, lobbied for the project with South Korean officials and hosted Sae-A executives in Washington to press the plan.
Bill Clinton attended the Sae-A contract-signing ceremony in Port-au-Prince on Jan. 11, 2011 '-- a day before the first anniversary of the earthquake. He later laid the first stone of the park's construction. And then in October 2012, the Clintons, Martelly and other officials attended the ribbon-cutting.
Speaking to a group of investors at the ceremony, officials and celebrities that included actors Sean Penn and Ben Stiller, as well as business moguls Donna Karan and Richard Branson, Hillary Clinton said it represented ''a new day for Haiti and a new model for how the international community practices development.''
''Haiti is truly open for business, and we want your help,'' she said. ''We see this partnership between governments like our own and the private sector as absolutely essential in promoting and supporting long-term prosperity in Haiti. We know very well that long-term prosperity cannot come from just the provision of aid. There must be trade and investment like we have seen here today.''
Today, Sae-A employs about 4,500 people. Company spokesman Lon Garwood said the operation has been steadily growing and will open a new facility next month. Henri-Claude M¼ller-Poitevien, a Haitian government official who works in the apparel industry, said the Caracol project is on schedule and continues to expand.
A power plant was built, but plans for a new port at the industrial park to carry finished goods to the United States have been shelved. Residents of the plant's housing project say their land floods when it rains, and few said they think the plant will ever create the number of jobs originally promised.
''I believe that the momentum to attract people there in a massive way is past,'' said Bellerive, the former prime minister. ''You can do interesting things with Caracol, but you have to reinvent the concept. Today, it has failed.''
Each morning, crowds line up outside the park's big front gate, which is guarded by four men in crisp khaki uniforms carrying shotguns. They wait in a sliver of shade next to a cinder-block wall, many holding r(C)sum(C)s in envelopes. Most said they have been coming every day for months, waiting for jobs that pay about $5 a day.
From his envelope, Jean Mito Palvetus, 27, pulled out a diploma attesting that he had completed 200 hours of training with the U.S. Agency for International Development on an industrial sewing machine.
''I have three kids and a wife, and I can't support them,'' he said, sweating in the hot morning sun. ''I have a diploma, but I still can't get a job here. I still have nothing.''
Tom Hamburger in Washington contributed to this report.
Kevin Sullivan is a Post senior correspondent. He is a longtime foreign correspondent who has been based in Tokyo, Mexico City and London, and also served as the Post's Sunday and Features Editor.
Rosalind Helderman is a political enterprise and investigations reporter for the Washington Post.
Continue reading10 minutes left
CGI and others, they are just Stealing Money, YOUR money
Monica Lewinsky calls for a more compassionate internet - BBC News
Sat, 21 Mar 2015 23:02
Monica Lewnisky's speech at the Ted conference was given a standing ovation Monica Lewinsky has taken to the stage at the Ted (Technology, Entertainment and Design) conference to call for a more compassionate internet.
The former White House intern's love affair with President Bill Clinton made headlines around the world in 1998.
Describing herself as one of the first victims of cyberbullying, she said the internet had created a culture where people enjoyed viewing other's shame online.
Her speech received a standing ovation.
It is only the second time she has spoken publicly since disappearing from the public eye in 2005. In October she spoke at Forbes' Under 30 Summit.
She began her speech by joking she was the only 40-something who did not wish to be 22 again.
"At the age of 22, I fell in love with my boss. At the age of 24, I learned the devastating consequences."
The Clinton-Lewinsky scandal was one of the first major stories to break online The internet, she said, had made her own personal humiliation far worse.
"In 1998, after having been swept up in an improbable romance, I was then swept up into the eye of a political, legal and media maelstrom like we had never seen before."
And this particular scandal was, she said, "brought to you by the digital revolution".
"When the story broke it broke online. It was one of the first times that the traditional news had been usurped by the internet for a major news story," she told the Ted audience.
Although there was no social media in 1998 as we know it today, images of Ms Lewinsky famously wearing a black beret quickly went viral online as did comments posted in response to online articles while jokes based on the details of her affair were emailed around the world.
"I went from being a private figure to being a publicly humiliated one worldwide. There were mobs of virtual stone-throwers."
"I was branded a tart, a slut, a whore, a bimbo. I lost my reputation and my dignity and I almost lost my life."
"Seventeen years ago there was no name for it but now we call it cyberbullying or online harassment," she said.
UK charity Childline reported a 87% increase in calls related to cyberbullying last year and, according the children's charity NSPCC, one in five children is now bullied online.
Last year, a study conducted in the Netherlands found that cyberbullying was more likely to lead young people to suicide than its offline equivalent.
Cyberbullying is a growing problem and can have devastating consequences What is cyberbullying?It can include:
Texting scary or rude messages by mobile phoneSending unpleasant photos by mobile phoneUsing online message boards, chatrooms or social networks to post cruel messagesDeleting the victim's name or ignoring their messages on groups or social networksWhat to do about cyberbullyingTell someone, be it a family member, teacher or other trusted adult, if something upsets youDon't respond to messages but save evidenceDon't take everything to heart; know yourselfDon't give out your own or friends' personal informationBe careful about what you write and post onlineKnow how to block or report peopleDon't add to the problem by liking or sharing an unkind image or commentMs Lewinsky told the story of 18-year-old Tyler Clementi, who was a student at Rutgers University in New Jersey when his roommate set up a webcam and captured video of him in bed with another man.
The resulting online harassment led Mr Clementi to suicide, jumping from the George Washington Bridge.
"Tyler's tragic, senseless death was a turning point for me," said Ms Lewinsky.
"It served to re-contextualise my experiences. I began to look at the world of humiliation and bullying around me and see something different '... every day online, people -especially young people who are not developmentally equipped to handle this - are so abused and humiliated that they can't imagine living to the next day. And some don't."
That, she said, was unacceptable. She urged people to approach their online communications with more compassion.
"Post a positive comment, imagine walking a mile in someone else's headline," she said.
Culture of shame Youngsters are increasingly falling victim to cyberbullies Technology, she said, had extended the "echo of embarrassment".
"It used to only extend as far as your family, your school, your village, but now it is to the whole online community.
"The more shame, the more clicks and the more clicks the more advertising dollars. We are making money off the back of suffering."
She pointed to recent cases such as the leaking of nude photos of celebrities such as Jennifer Lawrence.
"One gossip website had five million hits for this one," she said.
And when Sony Pictures was hacked, the private emails between executives and actors were the ones that garnered the most interest because they were ones that would lead to "the most public humiliation" she said.
The internet had made people numb to the suffering and humiliation of others, she concluded.
Ms Lewinsky ended her talk on a personal note, explaining why she had decided to speak out after a decade of silence.
"It was time to stop tip-toeing around my past, it was time to take back my narrative and let others know that you can survive it."
F-Russia
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Putin Asks Belarus And Kazakhstan To Unite Their Currencies With Ruble
Sun, 22 Mar 2015 03:49
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday proposed a currency union to the leaders of Belarus and Kazakhstan. All three countries are a part of the Eurasian Economic Union, a political and economic bloc of former Soviet republics.
At the meeting, which took place in Kazakhstan's capital Astana, the leaders discussed the economic problems facing the three countries. Russia has been slapped with economic sanctions for its alleged role in the conflict in eastern Ukraine while the Belarusian ruble has taken a hit in recent months -- it fell about 30 percent in January -- while oil-rich Kazakhstan has been hit by the global slump in oil prices.
''We think the time has come to talk about the possibility of forming a currency union. Working shoulder to shoulder, it's easier to react to external financial and economic threats and protect our joint market,'' Putin said after the meeting, according to Sputnik News.
The Russian currency has lost nearly half of its value since mid-March last year, amid the ongoing conflict in eastern Ukraine. World powers, including the U.S. and European Union, have sought to punish Russia with sanctions following the latter's annexation of Crimea, and for its alleged role in destabilizing Ukraine. Russia has denied its involvement in the Ukrainian conflict but has admitted that Russian troops were present in Crimea before its split from Ukraine. Between March and December 2014, the ruble had depreciated by about 50 percent, and has recovered slightly since then.
At the Astana meeting, with Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko and Kazakhstan's President Nursultan Nazarbayev, Putin also addressed the conflict in eastern Ukraine, according to Reuters. "I hope the Kiev authorities will gradually implement the agreements (for ending the conflict) reached in (the Belarussian capital) Minsk."
Exclusive: We talk of values, Russia of money, says Ukraine president | euronews, world news
Sun, 22 Mar 2015 03:48
In an exclusive interview with Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko, the leader spoke to euronews about the upcoming EU summit and what position the union should adopt towards Russia to bring about a resolution to the situation in his country:''This is a very important test for the European Union. On the one hand the Russians talk about the money, the Russians talk about the money, the cost of the sanctions and everything. The EU and Ukraine talk about values and these are two completely different worlds, values and money. I am absolutely sure that the European Union and all the leaders of the member states will pass this test.What do we expect? We expect the EU to maintain unity and that will exist not only within the EU, but with the whole world, the US, Canada, Japan, Australia and Switzerland. That's the whole world engaged in responsible behaviour. We are expecting a very, very strong statement that if Russia doesn't meet the Minsk agreement, if Russia does not leave Crimea, sanctions will be rolled over or expanded.''
Sergio Cantone:euronews:''Are you afraid that Crimea could become a military hub?''
President Petro Poroshenko:''It's already a military hub, as far as I understand from the statement of the Russian President that they placed missiles there, which are capable of carrying nuclear weapons. And I think that this is'.... again this is not a question of Ukrainian independence or Ukrainian sovereignty over Crimea. This is increasing significantly the danger of a full-scale conflict in the Black Sea region. Because these missiles have a range of 500 kilometers that can easily reach several NATO member states and that should prompt a certain reaction. Another problem in Crimea is the humanitarian situation there. This is a brutal violation of human rights. The whole aboriginal nation, the Crimean Tartars, with a number of more than 300,000 people are under very severe pressure. The leaders of these people are under arrest in Russian prisons or are prohibited, like during the Stalin era, to enter Crimea.''
You can see the full interview on euronews, Thursday evening CET.
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Ukraine bans Euronews | EurActiv
Sun, 22 Mar 2015 03:45
While EU leaders discuss how to counter Russian propaganda, a pro-Moscow Ukrainian oligarch bought the Ukrainian service of Euronews, and Kyiv decided to >>revoke its broadcasting license.
The European Union is set to launch its first operation in a media war with Russia, within days of EU leaders approving the campaign at a summit yesterday (19 March).
>>Read: EU launches operation to counter Russian propaganda
Euronews is a private media venture that has received substantial EU funding over the years.
A press release quoted by the website TeleKritika quotes the Deputy General Director of the National Telecompany of Ukraine who speaks of ''legal problems'' surrounding the Ukrainian service of Euronews.
The Ukrainian edition of Euronews was opened in 2009, with Ukrainian public financing. Last February, an Egyptian investor, Naguib Sawiris, bought a 53% stake in Euronews, and on 13 March it was announced that Inter Media Group, owned by Dmytro Firtash, a Ukrainian oligarch, had taken over the Ukrainian service.
The Ukrainian service has a yearly license cost of '¬5.5 million and a debt of '¬10.8 million, accumulated until Inter Media Group purchase.
In February 2013, Firtash bought Inter Media Group Ltd., which owns eight television stations, for $2.5 billion from ex-First Deputy Prime Minister Valeriy Khoroshkovskiy, who was in charge of the secret services of the then-President Viktor Yanukovich.
Firtash awaits extradition to the US on bribery and other charges. He was arrested in March 2014 in Austria, but was released after being ordered to pay a bail of '¬125m, the largest in Austrian legal history. He must stay in Vienna and could be extradited to the US in the coming weeks.
In a very recent interview with Euronews, Firtash makes plain his political views, sounding as if they had been approved by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Ukrainian media pundits believe that the Ukrainian service of Euronews is unlikely to bring enough advertising income, and will not be sustainable.
The Director General of the National Telecompany of Ukraine is quoted as saying: ''For the news from Ukraine, the one responsible will from now on be the Firtash group. They need the ability to manipulate these or other events, in Ukraine as well as in Europe.''
Juncker: I watch Euronews all night longAt the end of the EU summit on Friday, 20 March, EurActiv Senior Editor Georgi Gotev asked Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker if he was aware that Ukraine had banned Euronews, after a controversial businessman bought the Ukrainian service. Juncker said that it was news to him, but he added...
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Not So Sweet Deal: Poroshenko Accuses Russia of Meddling in Sale of Roshen / Sputnik International
Sun, 22 Mar 2015 03:38
Business13:17 14.03.2015(updated 20:37 14.03.2015)
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Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has accused Russian authorities of interfering in the sale of a Russian subsidiary of his chocolate company, Roshen Confectionary Corporation.In an interview for Ukrainian television channel 1+1 Friday night, Poroshenko noted that "at the moment, Russian authorities ''and it would be better to ask [the management of] Roshen about this, are preventing the sale'...In any case, it must be carried through to the end."
Poroshenko did not clarify how exactly Russian authorities were interfering, but he is presumed to have been speaking about the Lipetsk, Russia subsidiary of his chocolate empire.
Last month, the Lipetsk Public Chamber appealed to the Ukrainian President with an open letter proposing that he transfer control of the Lipetsk factory to its workers.
"We propose to you, Mr. President, to transfer the ownership of the factory to its workers; on its basis, we could create an enterprise that would allow employees to provide for a decent life for their families, and [help support] the 13,500 refugees from southeast Ukraine who have arrived in the Lipetsk region, deprived of their homes and loved ones in their own country."
British multinational investment banking company Rothschild is said to be involved in the sale of Roshen. Poroshenko noted that his duties as president, as well as the rules surrounding negotiations over the sale of the firm, prevent him from intervening directly in the negotiations process, which he says may take up to a year."My schedule ''and I am at work for 18-20 hours a day, does not allow me to drop everything and go to the market and start bargaining," Poroshenko noted. The president added that "I'm sure Rothschild and others would be happy to provide all the necessary information, all the relevant information regarding the progression of the sales process."
Poroshenko complained that Ukraine's difficult economic situation, compounded by the war, make potential investors reluctant to invest. "Ukraine will see peace, and investors will come to Ukraine. While the war is going on, no one wants to come to Ukraine, including investors." Nevertheless, the President hinted that there were at least four potential buyers.
Roshen, the biggest candy manufacturer in Ukraine and one of the largest confectionary companies in the world, has factories in the Ukrainian cities of Kiev, Vinnitsa, and Kremenchug, and in Klaipeda (Lithuania), Budapest (Hungary), and Lipetsk (Russia). Despite economic decline and the ongoing military conflict in eastern Ukraine, the $1.5 billion dollar company managed to stay in the green in 2014, netting a profit of $1.35 million, nearly nine times what it had brought in in 2013.Poroshenko made a "solemn promise" nearly a year ago that he would sell his majority stake in the company as soon as he took office, but the process has dragged along since then. He repeated his promise in November, 2014, assuring German newspaper Bild that a deal to sell the company would be made soon.
Besides Roshen, Poroshenko also owns considerable bank and insurance company stock, shares in a shipbuilding company, a syrup-making factory and a fitness club, as well as Ukraine's Channel 5 television station, which he refuses to sell, arguing this would undermine national security.
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Putin Turns Up His Special War Against Europe
Sun, 22 Mar 2015 05:49
Over the last year, since the Russian theft of Crimea, I've unambiguously warned that Vladimir Putin means what he says and he will not shy away from confrontation with the West, even at the risk of major war. Opportunities to deter this resurgent Russia, which I counseled many months ago, were punted on by the U.S. and NATO, so we now face a serious risk of war with Putin over his mounting hegemony in Eastern Europe. Ukraine is just the beginning.
As I've long made clear, Russia does not play by Western rules, and Putin and his Kremlin, being Chekists to their core, place great value on what I term Special War, meaning a shadowy amalgam of espionage, propaganda, and terrorism that Western states are poorly positioned to counter. At the end of the last year I predicted that the Kremlin's Special War against the West was sure to rise, and so it has in the first quarter of this new year.
Last week I explained how Russian espionage against the Czech Republic '-- no congenital hater of the Russians like, say, Poland or the Baltics '-- had become so serious that Prague had expelled three Russian spies in recent months, amid warnings from Czech counterintelligence that at least a quarter of the outsized number of Russian diplomats in the country were actually spies posing as diplomats.
Over the last year I've explained in detail how Russian intelligence abroad, encompassing the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) and the military's Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU), have increased the scope and intensity of their operations against many NATO countries, including France, Germany, Hungary, and Poland. Most of these operations are undertaken by SVR or GRU officers serving under what the Russians term Legal cover, meaning they are pretending to be diplomats, trade representatives, and whatnot.
But in recent years there has also been an uptick in operations by spies whom the Russians term Illegals, meaning intelligence officers who serve abroad without any official protection, often posing as third-country nationals. The massive 2010 round up of a whole network of SVR Illegals in the United States proved a serious blow to the Kremlin, and their espionage still exhibits weaknesses, as evidenced by the recent arrest of an SVR Illegal operating in New York, a second-rater who did not belong to the elite of Russian spies.
Such Kremlin activities extend beyond NATO as well, and now it's Sweden's turn. A neutral that's prone to downplaying threats on political grounds, and is always careful not to needlessly aggravate the Russian bear looming across the Baltic Sea, Stockholm has nevertheless had enough of clandestine Russian shenanigans in their country. This week they have gone public with the extent of the Kremlin's Special War being waged against Sweden.
According to the Swedish Security Service (S¤po), at least one-third of the Russian diplomats in the country are actually spies. Recent months have seen repeated incidents of Russian intelligence provocations '-- submarines off the coast, SVR and GRU ramping up clandestine in-country operations '-- and Stockholm is worried, particularly because Kremlin efforts to recruit spies inside Swedish military and political circles are increasingly obvious.
Gone are the bumbling, vodka-swilling Russian spies of the 1990's, when the Soviet collapse curtailed much espionage abroad. Since 2006, SVR and GRU operations against the West have risen steadily, to the point that current activities are as intense in number and audacity as they were at the height of the Cold War. Sweden is no exception, and S¤po's chief analyst noted that Russian spies today are ''highly educated and often younger than during the Soviet era. They are driven, goal-oriented and socially competent.'' Not to mention that this is only talking about Russian Legals, not Illegals, who can be assumed to add to the ranks of Kremlin spies in Sweden, perhaps considerably.
As always, these spies are recruiting sources, disseminating disinformation, and fomenting dissent in the host country, per longstanding Russian espionage practice. This has become so serious that Stockholm now considers Russia to be the top threat to Swedish national security. The S¤po analyst bluntly explained, ''There are hundreds of Russian intelligence officers around Europe and the West. They violate our territory every day '... We see Russian intelligence operations in Sweden'--we can't interpret this in any other way'--as preparation for military operations against Sweden.''
There's the rub. Every week of late, Putin turns up the heat on NATO and the West: diplomatic threats, aggressive maneuvers with combat aircraft, the movement of late''model missiles to Kaliningrad, putting Stockholm, Warsaw, and Berlin within easy range of Russian tactical nuclear weapons. Now, Putin either wants open war against the West '-- not just the clandestine games of Special War '-- or we wants us to think he does: in either case, this is a terrifying situation.
Many believe that Putin thinks he can use the threat of nuclear blackmail to gain a free hand for Russian aggression in Eastern Europe, and they may be right. Certainly there is little in NATO reactions to Russian aggression to date that suggests a backbone is forming in Berlin, Paris, or Washington, DC. Whether or not the Kremlin wants major war is known only to Putin and the tiny circle of advisors, all hard-edged Chekists like himself, whom the Russian leader listens to.
For now, Special War will continue to achieve Kremlin aims, possibly without major war, while laying the intelligence groundwork for that bigger conflict, should that happen. Today's news brings word that Polish counterintelligence has detected an air force officer spying for Moscow. He is reported to have passed classified information about Poland's wing of F-16 fighters, the backbone of Polish defense against the Russians, in what may constitute a serious blow to NATO readiness on the Alliance's exposed eastern frontier.
Another day, another Russian spy in the West detected. You can expect more of this. If we're lucky, our conflict with Putin, which is being orchestrated by the Kremlin, will remain confined to SpyWar. Yet how robustly the West confronts Russian Special War '-- which is ultimately a question of politics, not counterespionage '-- is a good benchmark for how effectively we can deter a major, and possibly nuclear, war. Without political will, all the West's acumen in military and intelligence affairs will matter little compared to the robust will shown by Vladimir Putin, who is playing for keeps, and intends to win.
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TANAP begins construction of ambitious natural gas transmission project | Oil and Gas Technology
Sun, 22 Mar 2015 12:56
The TANAP (Trans Anatolian Natural Gas Project) was kicked off on Tuesday this week with a groundbreaking ceremony in eastern Turkey attended by the presidents of Turkey, Azerbaijan and Georgia
The project aims to connect Azerbaijan's offshore gas fields to Turkish and European comsumers.
The 1,850 kilometre pipeline is indented to have an initial capacity of around 16 million cubic metres per year, ramping up to 31 bcm as production comes online.
Only six billion cubic metres will be delivered to Turkey, with the rest continuing on to European markets.
The project is estimated to cost EUR 10bn.
TANAP hopes to have gas supplies to turkey completed by 2018.
The TAP (Trans Adriatic Pipeline) project, predicted to be complete by 2020, will then take the gas to Western Europe.
By 2023, TANAP's capacity will rise to 23 bcm per year and then to 31 bcm by 2026, according to project executives.
''We plan to establish Turkey as the energy distribution hub of the region,'' President Tayyip Erdogan said at the groundbreaking ceremony.
The Turkish government hads a 30 per cent stakle in the project, SOCAR (the Azeri-state oil and gas company) 58 per cent, and BP 12 per cent.
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Sandy Hook
Annie Email
You earned it!
Hi Adam,
You most certainly earned yourself a picture in the last episode. Not only did you read my email, but you talked about my hometown! (I've lived on the Brookfield-Newtown line my entire life)
I've honestly been hesitant (to say the least) to speak of my hometown and my childhood friendship with Adam (Lanza). If you haven't figured it out in your head, we were the same age. My incredible boyfriend, Max Turnquist, got me into this show and has constantly asked me to tell you more about my town. Although I'm still hesitant to tell a lot, I'll give you a little.
A very close friend of mine (PFC) mentioned that she had spoken to him about a military career. I don't know how successful that was for him between August and December but I'm guessing it didn't go well.
I am actually in a very odd position as far as this goes because after the event my mother's company sold the NPS district their current security system, It's Honeywell's Instant Alert and in case of any kind of emergency it immediately contacts the parents through email, text, or phone call. Not gonna lie, that sale helped fund my degree.
I'm starting to think everywhere I end up living is cursed, first Newtown then Boston (I lived only a few blocks from the finish line in undergrad). Please give some karma to help stop this madness!
Thanks,
Annie
Max Turnquist email
I'm drunk and have crystals
Hey Adam, I love your show, and the Annie you read the note of yesterday is my gf and one of the several people I have hit in the mouth. I also have a crystal collection, which brings me to my point, is there any crystal that you'd want? I know you jokingly went to some crystal groups, but I am collector and would totally send you something, is there anything you're looking for? Sorry for the incoherence, I'm like 8 drinks deep. Also, Annie sent you pics, hope you enjoy!
Will donate soon, almost a semiknight ($500)
-Max
P.S. If you want, I can explain anything science (specifically physics) for you.
Packet Equality
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Producer Drew's pointer to AdSensefor 'Unlawful Content'
If you're looking for a good summary of what content can be considered unlawful, I imagine the Google AdCents terms and conditions will serve as a disturbingly prescient list for the coming shackles of our net slavery.
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Prohibited content - AdSense Help
Sun, 22 Mar 2015 02:34
Click on the link below to be directed to the article of your choice:
Adult contentContent that advocates against an individual, group, or organizationCopyrighted materialDrug, alcohol, and tobacco-related contentHacking and cracking contentSites that offer compensation programs ("pay-to" sites)Sites that use Google Brand featuresViolent contentWeapon-related contentOther illegal contentIf you've found a site violating the AdSense program policies, please report it here.Adult contentWhat's the policy?
The AdSense network is considered family-safe, which means that publishers aren't permitted to place Google ads on sites which contain pornography, adult, or mature content. If your site has content which you wouldn't be comfortable viewing at work or with family members around, then it probably isn't an appropriate site for Google ads. Please note that we also don't allow AdSense for search (AFS) search boxes to be placed on adult content pages.
Additional informationI received a policy notification asking me to make changes to my site in three days
Please read the notification carefully and make any appropriate changes to your site to resolve the issue.Keep in mind that the example page we provide is just an example, and you should review your entire site to ensure that the same issue doesn't continue to exist on other pages.We will automatically review your site again after three business days, so there's no need for you to contact us and inform us of your changes.Click here for more information.
Ads were disabled on my site
Please carefully review your notification to learn specifically why ad serving was disabled to your site. All policy notifications are sent via email or can be accessed in your AdSense account.After making any necessary changes to your site, you can request a re-review of your site by filling out this form.My account was disabled
For more information on why your account was disabled and next steps, please click here.
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Content that advocates against an individual, group, or organizationWhat's the policy?
Google believes strongly in the freedom of expression, but also recognizes the need to protect the quality of the AdSense network for users, advertisers, and publishers.
Google ads aren't permitted on sites that contain harassing or bullying content, or on content that incites hatred or promotes violence against individuals or groups based on race or ethnic origin, religion, disability, gender, age, veteran status, or sexual orientation/gender identity. Additionally, Google ads may not appear on content that incites or advocates for harm against an individual or group.
However, websites containing educational, documentary, historical, scientific, or artistic content related to such subjects are permitted to participate in AdSense.
ExamplesExamples*
AcceptableNot acceptablePolitical advertising sites (and other political content) as long as they are not hate-related or advocating for harm against another partySatire sites that do not advocate violence or target hateful content against an individual or groupReligious organization sites as long as they are not hate-related or advocating against another religious organizationConsumer awareness sites (e.g., review sites, both positive and negative)Academic material or case studies about harassment in the workplaceSites with content that advocates/condones violence or makes threats of harm against an individual or groupSites with harassing or bullying contentSites with content that incites or promotes hatred against a group or individualsContent that encourages others to believe that a group or individual is inhuman or inferiorContent that attacks a person or group on the basis sexual orientation or gender identity * Please note that these examples are not limited to the following.
Additional informationI received a policy notification asking me to make changes to my site in three days
Please read the notification carefully and make any appropriate changes to your site to resolve the issue.Keep in mind that the example page we provide is just an example, and you should review your entire site to ensure that the same issue doesn't continue to exist on other pages.We will automatically review your site again after three business days, so there's no need for you to contact us and inform us of your changes.Click here for more information.
Ads were disabled on my site
Please carefully review your notification to learn specifically why ad serving was disabled to your site. All policy notifications are sent via email or can be accessed in your AdSense account.After making any necessary changes to your site, you can request a re-review of your site by filling out this form.My account was disabled
For more information on why your account was disabled and next steps, please click here.
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Copyrighted materialWhat's the policy?
Google ads may not be displayed on websites with content protected by copyright law unless they have the necessary legal rights to display or direct traffic to that content. Some examples of copyrighted content might include MP3 and video files, television shows, software, comics, and literary works.
When a website displays someone else's website within a frame or window on their own site, this is considered framing content. Placing Google ads on such pages is strictly prohibited.
ExamplesExamples*
AcceptableNot acceptableSites offering bittorrent clients (software for downloading torrents)Sites that host or directly link to copyrighted contentWarez sitesROM sitesSites dedicated to audio or video file downloadsSites that explicitly state the material is pirated * Please note that these examples are not limited to the following.
Additional informationAds were disabled on my site
Please carefully review your notification to learn specifically why ad serving was disabled to your site. All policy notifications are sent via email or can be accessed in your AdSense account.After making any necessary changes to your site, you can request a re-review of your site by filling out this form.My account was disabled
For more information on why your account was disabled and next steps, please click here.
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Drug, alcohol, and tobacco-related contentWhat's the policy?
The AdSense program policies prohibit Google ads on sites which sell or promote drugs or drug paraphernalia. This includes drug accessories, illegal or prescription drugs, and herbal drugs such as salvia and magic mushrooms. Ads are also not permitted on pages which sell or promote the sales of beer, hard alcohol, or liqueurs. Additionally, publishers are not permitted to place ads on sites which sell or promote tobacco and tobacco-related products, including cigarettes, cigars, tobacco pipes, and rolling paper.
Please be aware that the promotion of prohibited content includes providing links to sites that do not follow our drug, alcohol, and tobacco-related content policies.
However, publishers are permitted to place ads on informational content relating to brewing or distilling beer, as well as content related to the topic of quitting smoking.
ExamplesExamples *
DrugsAcceptableNot acceptableSites that sell herbal plants that can be used as hallucinogens, but are not promoting them for their drug-related usesNote: These plants are legal to purchase as long as they are NOT eaten, brewed, or smokedSites that sell over-the-counter drugsInformational sites about prescription drugsSites providing information on EphedraSales or promotion of illegal drugs and illegal drug paraphernaliaNote: Drugs illegal in the US are unacceptable even if legal elsewhereInformation or products for passing drug testsSales of prescription drugs, even if through an affiliate programsSites that primarily drive traffic to online drugstores/pharmaciesSites that sell Ephedra or alternatives to Ephedra, such as Ephedrine
Alcohol
AcceptableNot acceptableSites that sell wine and champagneSites that sell equipment or provide information on how to distill or brew beerDirectories of pub locationsSites that primarily sell alcohol (beer, hard alcohol, or liqueurs) directly from their site
Tobacco
AcceptableNot acceptableInformational sites about quitting smokingInformational sites that do not sell tobacco productsSites that primarily sell tobacco products (cigars, cigarettes, e-cigarettes, chewing tobacco, or rolling papers) * Please note that these examples are not limited to the following.
Additional informationI received a policy notification asking me to make changes to my site in three days
Please read the notification carefully and make any appropriate changes to your site to resolve the issue.Keep in mind that the example page we provide is just an example, and you should review your entire site to ensure that the same issue doesn't continue to exist on other pages.We will automatically review your site again after three business days, so there's no need for you to contact us and inform us of your changes.Click here for more information.
Ads were disabled on my site
Please carefully review your notification to learn specifically why ad serving was disabled to your site. All policy notifications are sent via email or can be accessed in your AdSense account.After making any necessary changes to your site, you can request a re-review of your site by filling out this form.My account was disabled
For more information on why your account was disabled and next steps, please click here.
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Hacking and cracking contentWhat's the policy?
Placement of Google ads is not permitted on websites that promote any form of hacking or cracking. Hacking and cracking content is content that provides users with instructions or equipment that tampers with or provides illegal access to software, servers, or websites.
ExamplesExamples*
AcceptableNot acceptableSites that provide information on ''unlocking" or ''jail-breaking" cellular phonesInformation or software for DVD, CD, game ripping, or MP3 music downloads (must not violate our copyright policy by providing downloads of copyrighted materials or driving traffic to sites with content of this natureSites that provide information on free-to-air satellite channelsSites or products that enable illegal access of cell phones and other communications or content delivery systems or devicesProducts or services that bypass copyright protection, including circumvention of digital rights management technologiesProducts that illegally descramble cable or satellite signals in order to get free servicesSites that assist or enable users to download streaming videos if prohibited by the content provider, such as those found on YouTube and Google Video * Please note that these examples are not limited to the following.
Additional informationI received a policy notification asking me to make changes to my site in three days
Please read the notification carefully and make any appropriate changes to your site to resolve the issue.Keep in mind that the example page we provide is just an example, and you should review your entire site to ensure that the same issue doesn't continue to exist on other pages.We will automatically review your site again after three business days, so there's no need for you to contact us and inform us of your changes.Click here for more information.
Ads were disabled on my site
Please carefully review your notification to learn specifically why ad serving was disabled to your site. All policy notifications are sent via email or can be accessed in your AdSense account.After making any necessary changes to your site, you can request a re-review of your site by filling out this form.My account was disabled
For more information on why your account was disabled and next steps, please click here.
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Sites that offer compensation programs ("pay-to" sites)What's the policy?
The term "pay-to" refers to sites that promise payment or incentives to users who click on ads, surf the web, read emails, or perform other similar tasks. Placing Google ads on such pages may result in invalid impressions or clicks and is therefore prohibited. Similarly, sites which primarily drive traffic to or discuss pay-to services are not permitted to show ads.
ExamplesExamples*
AcceptableNot acceptableSites that pay you to complete an action, as long as the action does not involve clicking on ads or artificially inflating ad impressions (Pay-To-Survey sites, Cashback sites)Safelist sites (opt-in groups where users promote their sites over email)Pay-To-Click SitesPay-To-Surf SitesAuto-Surf Sites"Search for Charity Sites"Pay-To-Search Sites * Please note that these examples are not limited to the following.
Additional informationI received a policy notification asking me to make changes to my site in three days
Please read the notification carefully and make any appropriate changes to your site to resolve the issue.Keep in mind that the example page we provide is just an example, and you should review your entire site to ensure that the same issue doesn't continue to exist on other pages.We will automatically review your site again after three business days, so there's no need for you to contact us and inform us of your changes.Click here for more information.
Ads were disabled on my site
Please carefully review your notification to learn specifically why ad serving was disabled to your site. All policy notifications are sent via email or can be accessed in your AdSense account.After making any necessary changes to your site, you can request a re-review of your site by filling out this form.My account was disabled
For more information on why your account was disabled and next steps, please click here.
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Sites that use Google Brand featuresWhat's the policy?
The use of Google brand features such as logos, screenshots, or other distinctive features without our express permission is not allowed. For more information about use of our trademarks and brand features, please review Google's Guidelines for Third-Party Use of Brand Features.
ExamplesExamples*
Not acceptableMimic the Google user interface or frame Google services, such as Google Finance or Google NewsImply having an affiliation or partnership with GooglePrimarily offer "get rich quick" or other schemes involving Google productsPublishers are not permitted to abuse or promote the abuse of any Google product, such as YouTube, Google Play, or Blogger. This includes circumventing, or providing the means to circumvent, the policies or terms of these or other Google products, such as by allowing users to download YouTube videos.Contain Google's trademarked terms in the site's URL * Please note that these examples are not limited to the following.
Additional informationI received a policy notification asking me to make changes to my site in three days
Please read the notification carefully and make any appropriate changes to your site to resolve the issue.Keep in mind that the example page we provide is just an example, and you should review your entire site to ensure that the same issue doesn't continue to exist on other pages.We will automatically review your site again after three business days, so there's no need for you to contact us and inform us of your changes.Click here for more information.
Ads were disabled on my site
Please carefully review your notification to learn specifically why ad serving was disabled to your site. All policy notifications are sent via email or can be accessed in your AdSense account.After making any necessary changes to your site, you can request a re-review of your site by filling out this form.My account was disabled
For more information on why your account was disabled and next steps, please click here.
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Violent contentWhat's the policy?
Our program policies don't allow Google ads to be placed on content that contains graphic or gory images such as bloodshed, fight scenes, and gruesome or freak accidents. Publishers are responsible for every page on which their ad code appears and for screening any text, images, videos, or other media which will appear on a page with Google ads.
ExamplesExamples*
AcceptableNot acceptableBoxing or martial arts sitesBreaking bonesGetting hit by trains/carsReceiving other serious injuriesSites devoted to fight videosSites with gory videos or images * Please note that these examples are not limited to the following.
Additional informationI received a policy notification asking me to make changes to my site in three days
Please read the notification carefully and make any appropriate changes to your site to resolve the issue.Keep in mind that the example page we provide is just an example, and you should review your entire site to ensure that the same issue doesn't continue to exist on other pages.We will automatically review your site again after three business days, so there's no need for you to contact us and inform us of your changes.Click here for more information.
Ads were disabled on my site
Please carefully review your notification to learn specifically why ad serving was disabled to your site. All policy notifications are sent via email or can be accessed in your AdSense account.After making any necessary changes to your site, you can request a re-review of your site by filling out this form.My account was disabled
For more information on why your account was disabled and next steps, please click here.
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Weapon-related contentWhat's the policy?
Google ads are not permitted to appear on sites that sell, facilitate or advocate the sales of weapons and weapon accessories. This includes but is not limited to the sales of ammunition, gun parts, hardware, pistols, rifles, BB guns, sporting guns, air guns, blow guns, and stun guns. This policy also prohibits the placement of ads on sites which sell explosives, including fireworks.
ExamplesExamples*
AcceptableNot acceptableSites that are primarily about the sport of huntingSites that sell antique guns, non-working replicas, emergency flares, paintball guns, scopes, or holstersSites located outside the U.S. that sell Airsoft gunsSites in the U.S. that sell Airsoft guns and have the appropriate disclaimer on the landing pageSites which contains content regarding archery or bowhuntingSites that sell collectible knives, daggers, swords, cutlery, chef knives, or sporting equipmentSites that sell firearms, ammunition, and gun accessoriesSites that catalogue individual firearmsSites that drive traffic to firearm salesSites in the U.S. that sell Airsoft guns and DO NOT have the appropriate disclaimer on the landing pageSites that sell knives or weapons with an intended violent useSites that teach bomb or other explosive-making or give instructions on how to harm or killSites that sell fireworks or pyrotechnic devices * Please note that these examples are not limited to the following.
Additional informationI received a policy notification asking me to make changes to my site in three days
Please read the notification carefully and make any appropriate changes to your site to resolve the issue.Keep in mind that the example page we provide is just an example, and you should review your entire site to ensure that the same issue doesn't continue to exist on other pages.We will automatically review your site again after three business days, so there's no need for you to contact us and inform us of your changes.Click here for more information.
Ads were disabled on my site
Please carefully review your notification to learn specifically why ad serving was disabled to your site. All policy notifications are sent via email or can be accessed in your AdSense account.After making any necessary changes to your site, you can request a re-review of your site by filling out this form.My account was disabled
For more information on why your account was disabled and next steps, please click here.
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Other illegal contentPublishers are not permitted to place ads on content related to the production of false legal documents, such as fake IDs, passports, social security cards, or immigration papers. In addition, ads may not appear on sites dedicated to the sale or distribution of term papers or other materials that promote fraudulent activity.
Google ads may not be placed on any site that promotes or permits any form of criminal activity.
Counterfeit goods
AdSense publishers may not display Google ads on webpages that offer for sale or promote the sale of counterfeit goods. Counterfeit goods contain a trademark or logo that is identical to or substantially indistinguishable from the trademark of another. They mimic the brand features of the product in an attempt to pass themselves off as a genuine product of the brand owner.
Underage, non-consensual, or illegal sex acts
Google AdSense absolutely prohibits monetization of content related to child sexual abuse imagery or pedophilia. Google has always been at the forefront in the fight against online child abuse, and an avid supporter of family safety online.
Under United States federal law, child sexual abuse imagery is defined as visual depictions of minors (i.e., under 18) engaged in a sexual act such as intercourse, oral sex, or masturbation as well as the lascivious depictions of the genitals (covered or uncovered). This definition extends to photographs, videos, cartoons, drawings, paintings, and sculptures. The image can involve a real child; a computer-generated, morphed, composite or otherwise altered image that appears to be a child (think ''Photoshop''). This also includes soliciting minors for sexual acts, which is also known as "enticement."
Pedophilia is any content or behavior (images, texts, videos, etc.) that depicts, encourages, or promotes sexual attraction by adults toward minors (i.e., under 18).
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Adult content - AdSense Help
Sun, 22 Mar 2015 02:36
Publishers are not permitted to place Google ads or AdSense for search (AFS) search boxes on pages with adult or mature content. While we recognize that interpretations of adult or mature content may vary across countries and cultures, we hold all publishers accountable to the same content requirements so that we can ensure a safe and healthy global advertising ecosystem.
If you're unsure about whether or not something might be considered adult content, our general rule of thumb is this: if you wouldn't want a child to see the content or you would be embarrassed to view the page at work in front of colleagues, then you should not place ad code on it.
You can use Google Search with the site: search operator in your query to find content that may be in violation of the AdSense policies.For more information about different types of adult violations, click on the links below:
Nudity and pornographySexually gratifying contentFetishes and sexual aidsMail order brides, escort services, adult or sexual dating sitesAdult links to external sitesAdult search resultsExplicit text and extreme profanityComment spamSexual tips and health
Nudity and pornographyGoogle ads may not be placed on pages that contain nudity or pornography. Examples include, but are not limited to, pages with images, videos, or descriptions containing:
pornographic images, videos, or gamespornographic cartoons or anime (hentai/ecchi)nudityBack to top
Sexually gratifying contentGoogle ads may not be placed on content that is sexually suggestive and/or intended to cause sexual arousal. Examples of content that may be considered sexually gratifying include, but are not limited to:
close-ups of breasts, buttocks, or crotchessheer or see-through clothing or lingeriestrategically covered nudity (includes situations in which genitals are blurred out by camera)images of men or women posing and/or undressing in a seductive mannerBack to top
Fetishes and sexual aidsGoogle ads may not be placed on pages that promote, sell, or discuss sexual fetishes, aids, devices, or enhancement tools.
A fetish may be an obsession or sexual desire in which gratification is dependent upon specific objects (diapers, food items, etc.), materials (leather, latex, etc), parts of a body (feet, toes, ears, etc.), or situations. Examples of types of fetishes and fetishistic practices may include, but are not limited to:
bestiality, necrophilia, incest, and voyeurismrole-playing, bondage, dominance and submissionsadomasochism, snuffGoogle may consider something to be a sexual aid, device, or enhancement tool if it is used for sexual pleasure and/or to improve sexual experiences. This includes, but is not limited to:
sexual toys such as vibrators, dildos, personal lubricantspenis and breast enlargement tools and/or medicationsBack to top
Mail order brides, escort services, adult or sexual dating sitesGoogle ads may not be placed on any sites offering adult or sexual services, dating, companionship or erotic massages. Examples include, but are not limited to:
personal ads and/or sites for affairs and/or sexual encountersescort servicesmail order brideserotic massage servicesBack to top
Adult links to external sitesGoogle ads may not be placed on pages that provide links for or drive traffic to adult or mature sites.
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Adult search resultsGoogle ads may not be displayed on adult search results. Examples include, but are not limited to, search results pages for:
search results pages for adult or mature termimages or videos with adult keywords or tagsuser generated comments that are mature in natureBack to top
Explicit text and extreme profanityGoogle ads may not be placed on pages with explicit text or extreme profanity. Examples include, but are not limited to, pages containing:
erotic stories and/or descriptions of sexual actssexual explicit jokeserotic or sexual forums, bulletin boards, and/or discussion groupssexual or profane terms in the URLcrude language and/or excessive amounts profanityBack to top
Comment spamGoogle ads may not be placed on pages containing any form of comment spam (including adult language). Examples of comment spam include, but are not limited to: random sentences and/or portions of sentences to forum posts that have been copied and pasted from other sources, random and/or nonsensical words, and phrases that are unrelated to the topic.
While we understand the challenges of monitoring user-generated content, we require publishers to monitor the pages upon which ad code appears. Please visit the user-generated content section of our Help Center for recommended solutions to police your content.
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Sexual tips and healthGoogle ads may not be placed on content that provides tips regarding sexual performance or discusses some treatments of sexual health issues. Examples include, but are not limited to:
advice about improving sexual performancediscussions and/or images of sexually transmitted diseasessexual health advice related to pregnancy, childbirth, or family planningBack to top
Comment Spam - AdSense Help
Sun, 22 Mar 2015 02:36
Publishers are not permitted to place Google ads or AdSense for search (AFS) search boxes on pages with adult or mature content. While we recognize that interpretations of adult or mature content may vary across countries and cultures, we hold all publishers accountable to the same content requirements so that we can ensure a safe and healthy global advertising ecosystem.
If you're unsure about whether or not something might be considered adult content, our general rule of thumb is this: if you wouldn't want a child to see the content or you would be embarrassed to view the page at work in front of colleagues, then you should not place ad code on it.
You can use Google Search with the site: search operator in your query to find content that may be in violation of the AdSense policies.For more information about different types of adult violations, click on the links below:
Nudity and pornographySexually gratifying contentFetishes and sexual aidsMail order brides, escort services, adult or sexual dating sitesAdult links to external sitesAdult search resultsExplicit text and extreme profanityComment spamSexual tips and health
Nudity and pornographyGoogle ads may not be placed on pages that contain nudity or pornography. Examples include, but are not limited to, pages with images, videos, or descriptions containing:
pornographic images, videos, or gamespornographic cartoons or anime (hentai/ecchi)nudityBack to top
Sexually gratifying contentGoogle ads may not be placed on content that is sexually suggestive and/or intended to cause sexual arousal. Examples of content that may be considered sexually gratifying include, but are not limited to:
close-ups of breasts, buttocks, or crotchessheer or see-through clothing or lingeriestrategically covered nudity (includes situations in which genitals are blurred out by camera)images of men or women posing and/or undressing in a seductive mannerBack to top
Fetishes and sexual aidsGoogle ads may not be placed on pages that promote, sell, or discuss sexual fetishes, aids, devices, or enhancement tools.
A fetish may be an obsession or sexual desire in which gratification is dependent upon specific objects (diapers, food items, etc.), materials (leather, latex, etc), parts of a body (feet, toes, ears, etc.), or situations. Examples of types of fetishes and fetishistic practices may include, but are not limited to:
bestiality, necrophilia, incest, and voyeurismrole-playing, bondage, dominance and submissionsadomasochism, snuffGoogle may consider something to be a sexual aid, device, or enhancement tool if it is used for sexual pleasure and/or to improve sexual experiences. This includes, but is not limited to:
sexual toys such as vibrators, dildos, personal lubricantspenis and breast enlargement tools and/or medicationsBack to top
Mail order brides, escort services, adult or sexual dating sitesGoogle ads may not be placed on any sites offering adult or sexual services, dating, companionship or erotic massages. Examples include, but are not limited to:
personal ads and/or sites for affairs and/or sexual encountersescort servicesmail order brideserotic massage servicesBack to top
Adult links to external sitesGoogle ads may not be placed on pages that provide links for or drive traffic to adult or mature sites.
Back to top
Adult search resultsGoogle ads may not be displayed on adult search results. Examples include, but are not limited to, search results pages for:
search results pages for adult or mature termimages or videos with adult keywords or tagsuser generated comments that are mature in natureBack to top
Explicit text and extreme profanityGoogle ads may not be placed on pages with explicit text or extreme profanity. Examples include, but are not limited to, pages containing:
erotic stories and/or descriptions of sexual actssexual explicit jokeserotic or sexual forums, bulletin boards, and/or discussion groupssexual or profane terms in the URLcrude language and/or excessive amounts profanityBack to top
Comment spamGoogle ads may not be placed on pages containing any form of comment spam (including adult language). Examples of comment spam include, but are not limited to: random sentences and/or portions of sentences to forum posts that have been copied and pasted from other sources, random and/or nonsensical words, and phrases that are unrelated to the topic.
While we understand the challenges of monitoring user-generated content, we require publishers to monitor the pages upon which ad code appears. Please visit the user-generated content section of our Help Center for recommended solutions to police your content.
Back to top
Sexual tips and healthGoogle ads may not be placed on content that provides tips regarding sexual performance or discusses some treatments of sexual health issues. Examples include, but are not limited to:
advice about improving sexual performancediscussions and/or images of sexually transmitted diseasessexual health advice related to pregnancy, childbirth, or family planningBack to top
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Announcing Recipients of the Second Annual Congressional Internet Freedom Award
Sun, 22 Mar 2015 13:04
BECKERMAN: ''Senator Schumer, Majority Leader McCarthy, and Representative Lofgren all understand and champion the critical role the Internet industry plays in our economy.''
Washington, D.C. -Today, the Internet Association announced that Senator Charles E. Schumer (D-NY) and Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) are the 2015 recipients of the Congressional Internet Freedom Award, the Internet Association's highest recognition for excellence in public service. The Internet Association is also awarding Representative Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) a Lifetime Achievement Award for her work supporting the growth of the Internet industry through effective public policy.
''Senator Schumer, Majority Leader McCarthy, and Representative Lofgren all understand and champion the critical role the Internet industry plays in our economy,'' said Michael Beckerman, Internet Association President and CEO. ''These Congressional leaders have dedicated significant time and effort to advancing policies that foster innovation and growth across the Internet. On behalf of leading Internet-based companies and users across the country, the Internet Association is proud to present each with these awards, in recognition of their continued support of our industry.''
The recipients will be honored for their efforts as champions of Internet issues at the Internet Association's second annual Charity Gala. The gala, set to take place on April 14 in Washington, DC, will benefit After-School All-Stars, which serves nearly 90,000 low-income, at-risk youth in 13 major cities across the country. All proceeds from the event will raise money for STEM education initiatives for low-income and at-risk youth participating in After-School All-Stars programs, including after-school programs, a STEM summer camp, and coding, finance, robotics, and entrepreneurship programs.
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EuroLand
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EMAIL: Greece lies about Germany
Sun, 22 Mar 2015 15:22
Hello AC,See this article in guardian written by Greek sh*thead:http://www.theguardian.com/world/commentisfree/2015/mar/22/greece-scapegoats-germany-eurozone-crisisand quote therein:"Germans invaded Greece and remained in the country for three-and-a-half years, during which they committed more atrocities than in any other conquered nation."Note "more than in other country"!What a lie! In Poland in WW2 Germans killed 6 million Polish citizens, including 3 millionPolish Jews, in Greece in total Germans killed only 0.3 million Greeks yetGreece and Greeks claim number one of victimhood!Greece and Greeks were and are lying still. Please underline it in No Agenda!--Yo!
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Freihandel: Gabriel zieht rote Linie bei TTIP - Politik - S¼ddeutsche.de
Sat, 21 Mar 2015 23:56
21. M¤rz 2015, 00:02Gabriel stellt Bedingungen f¼r seine Zustimmung zum Freihandelsabkommen TTIP.(Foto: dpa)Anzeige
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Im Interview mit der SZ k¼ndigt Wirtschaftsminister Sigmar Gabriel an, in bestimmten Punkten des TTIP-Abkommens nicht nachgeben zu wollen.Im schlimmsten Fall will er das Freihandelsabkommen blockieren, sollten zum Beispiel Sozialstandards abgesenkt werden.Mit seiner Festlegung richtet sich Gabriel an die Skeptiker in seiner eigenen Partei.Von Michael Bauchm¼ller und Nico FriedDie Debatte um ein Freihandelsabkommen zwischen den USA und Europa (TTIP) verursacht in Deutschland seit Monaten Aufregung. Jetzt hat Bundeswirtschaftsminister und SPD-Chef Sigmar Gabriel zugesagt, sich strikt an die von der SPD gemeinsam mit den Gewerkschaften formulierten Bedingungen zu halten. "Was die SPD nicht will, wird auch nicht kommen", sagte Gabriel der S¼ddeutschen Zeitung.
"Wir werden keinen Zwang zur weiteren Liberalisierung oder Privatisierung akzeptieren. Wir werden keine Sozialstandards absenken und auch keine Umwelt- und Verbraucherschutzstandards. Die Parlamente werden nicht ausgehebelt. Und wir werden, da bin ich absolut sicher, auch keine Privatisierung der Schiedsgerichtsbarkeit erleben", sagte Gabriel.
Gabriel arbeitet seit Wochen an Reformvorschl¤genDie Schiedsgerichte sind besonders umstritten, auch in der SPD. In einem Positionspapier lehnte die "Parlamentarische Linke" der Partei sie j¼ngst rundweg ab - auch im bereits ausgehandelten Abkommen der EU mit Kanada (Ceta). Die Kritiker bef¼rchten, dass die Wirtschaft demokratisch legitimierte Gesetzgebung und rechtsstaatliche Systeme aushebelt: Auf dem Umweg ¼ber die internationalen Schiedsgerichte k¶nnten Unternehmen Schadenersatz wegen unliebsamer Gesetze durchsetzen. Das wiederum gebe Konzernen noch mehr Einfluss gegen¼ber der Politik. Die Richter an diesen Gerichten sind oft Juristen aus groen Anwaltskanzleien.
SZ-Grafik; Quelle: DPA/GTAIAnzeige
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Gabriel, der als Wirtschaftsminister durchaus Interesse an den Freihandelsabkommen hat, arbeitet seit Wochen an Reformvorschl¤gen. Vor Kurzem pr¤sentierte er gemeinsam mit anderen Sozialdemokraten aus EU-Staaten einen Vorschlag f¼r ¶ffentlich-rechtliche Handelsgerichtsh¶fe. Sie sollen aus Berufsrichtern bestehen und eine Berufungsm¶glichkeit vorsehen. Im Falle von unberechtigten Klagen sollen die Unternehmen die Kosten tragen, die den Gerichtshof angerufen haben. Sozialdemokratische Handelsminister aus sechs EU-Staaten, darunter auch Deutschland, wollen einen solchen Mechanismus am liebsten sogar im Abkommen mit Kanada verankern. "Die allgemeine Skepsis kann nicht unbeantwortet bleiben", konstatierten sie unl¤ngst.
Allerdings ist fraglich, ob die EU-Kommission zu Nachverhandlungen bei Ceta bereit w¤re. Derzeit l¤uft eine rechtliche Pr¼fung des Abkommens. Sie l¤sst allenfalls nderungen im Detail zu. Bei TTIP dagegen liegen die Dinge anders. Die Verhandlungen laufen noch, die achte Runde war Anfang Februar ohne groe Durchbr¼che zu Ende gegangen. Bis zum Fr¼hjahr will EU-Handelskommissarin Cecilia Malmstr¶m eigene Vorschl¤ge f¼r Investorenschutz und Schiedsgerichte vorlegen - also f¼r jenes Kapitel, das auch in der SPD auf groen Widerstand st¶t.
Verst¤ndnis f¼r Skepsis gegen¼ber TTIPGabriels Festlegung richtet sich vor allem an diese Skeptiker unter den Sozialdemokraten. Vor wenigen Wochen hatte der Wirtschaftsminister mit einer Rede im Bundestag noch Verunsicherung in den eigenen Reihen ausgel¶st. Gabriel hatte dabei den Eindruck erweckt, er sei der Meinung, dass Deutschland dem Ceta-Abkommen auch bei Vorbehalten zustimmen m¼sse, weil es sich nicht alleine gegen die restlichen Staaten der Europ¤ischen Union stellen k¶nne. Kritiker f¼rchten, so ein Verhalten werde sich dann bei TTIP wiederholen.
Nun zeigt Gabriel Verst¤ndnis f¼r die verbreitete Skepsis gegen¼ber TTIP: Die Europ¤ische Union habe "durch ihre Geheimverhandlungen in der Vergangenheit jeden Anlass dazu gegeben". Dies habe sich aber mit der neuen Handelskommissarin Malmstr¶m zum Positiven ver¤ndert.
Er machte zugleich deutlich, dass die Freihandelsabkommen aus seiner Sicht wichtig seien, damit sich Europa nicht verminderten Standards anpassen m¼sse, die in anderen Abkommen festgelegt w¼rden. "Ich bin sicher, dass die Standards, die Europa mit den USA und hoffentlich auch irgendwann mit Russland verabredet, bessere sein werden als die Standards, die China und Asien mit den USA verabreden werden", sagte Gabriel.
Mit Blick auf die innenpolitische Lage in Deutschland stellte der SPD-Chef seine Partei als treibende Kraft der groen Koalition dar: "Wir f¼hren dieses Land", sagte er. "Alle entscheidenden Projekte dieser Regierung stammen von uns." Deutschland habe eine stabile und handlungsf¤hige Regierung. "Und das liegt an der SPD", sagte Gabriel. Auch die hohen Zustimmungswerte der Bundeskanzlerin erkl¤rten sich letztlich aus dem Wirken des Koalitionspartners: "Angela Merkel ist eine popul¤re Kanzlerin, weil sie sich an einen von der SPD stark dominierten Koalitionsvertrag h¤lt", so Gabriel. "Soll ich sie jeden Tag daf¼r angreifen, dass sie sozialdemokratische Politik macht?" Wenn man sich nur an Umfragewerten ausrichte, "wird Politik opportunistisch und verkommt zur reinen Taktik", so Gabriel.
Ihr Forum Hat Gabriel TTIP im Griff?Sigmar Gabriel will in bestimmten Punkten des TTIP-Abkommens nicht nachgeben. Das hat der Wirtschaftsminister in einem SZ-Interview angek¼ndigt. Wenn n¶tig, werde er das Freihandelsabkommen blockieren. Ihr Forum
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The bailout crisis: why Greece is content to put the blame on Germany | World news | The Guardian
Sun, 22 Mar 2015 14:11
Germany's invasion of Greece near Larissa on 19 April 1941. Photograph: Roger Viollet Collection/Getty Images
Never have Greek-German relations been as bad as they are today. The image of the heartless, cold and disciplinarian Germans hovers over Greece '' while in Germany the talk is of the lazy, greedy and spendthrift Greeks who milk the German taxpayer.
Traditionally Germans have been the most ardent admirers of ancient Greece. German art historian Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717-1768) was the first to depict the Greek antiquity as an ideal of otherworldly perfection. The classical image of Greeks as tall, blond Aryans was his invention. He influenced poets from Goethe and H¶lderlin to Byron and the entire romantic 19th century. Greece owes its liberation from the Turks to the fact that public opinion in all of Europe was on its side.
Related:The bailout crisis: Germany's view of how Greece fell from grace
The first king of Greece was a German: Otto, prince of Bavaria. His father, Ludwig, was so passionate about Greek antiquity that he transformed his capital, Munich, into an ''Athens of the North''. Otto came to Greece with an army of German professors who tried to Europeanise the country '' with limited success. German archaeologists excavated some of the most famous Greek sites (Olympia foremost), and German scholars published the best editions of classical authors.
Of course, the second world war changed everything. The Germans invaded Greece '' after their allies, the Italians, had failed in their attempts '' and remained in the country for three-and-a-half years, during which they committed more atrocities than in any other conquered nation.
After the war, relations resumed and soon ameliorated. During the 1960s, many Greeks went to Germany as Gastarbeiter (guest workers) and brought back money and secondhand Mercedes cars. Germans visited Greece as tourists and loved the beaches and the carefree style of living. The woes of the war seemed forgotten, to the extent that by 2005, according to an opinion poll, 78% of Greeks cited Germany as their favourite nation.
Greeks have always had a love-hate relation with the Germans. On one hand, they admired German discipline and thoroughness (and adored German products). On the other, they could not abide their Protestant work ethic, their seriousness and their austerity. And then came the economic crisis.
It would take pages to analyse the many reasons and causes behind it. I would mainly blame our politicians '' especially the administration of the Socialist leader Costas Simitis and its decision to join the euro in 2001. Greece was not ready for such a hard currency.
Its nonexistent productive mechanism could not profit from it '' while the low-cost borrowing that it permitted was a constant temptation. It was (to quote myself) like letting a five-year-old loose in a sweet shop.
So the main culprits were the Greek politicians. But the European authorities must also take some blame. By 2006, when the interior minister, Prokopis Pavlopoulos (now head of state), hired hundreds of thousands of public sector employees and the pharaonic expenses for the Olympic Games had emptied the public treasury, it was already clear that Greece would never be able to cope with such a debt burden. But nobody from the international institutions intervened.
The causes of the crisis may be complex '' but the Greeks always needed a simple and straightforward answer. They have a long history of attributing their problems to foreign powers and agents. When I was a child, it was the English (''the secret finger of the intelligence service'') who were to blame. Then, for five decades, it was the US and the CIA. In the 1980s and 1990s, Greece was the most anti-American nation in the world after Pakistan.
And now the enemy is Germany. But why only Germany? After all, many factors were involved: the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank and 18 eurozone states.
One explanation is that Germany is the biggest and most powerful nation in Europe. It is very visible and suits all kinds of conspiracy theories. It has an arrogant style and a dark record. The war's bad memories were unearthed. Popular radio commentators constructed an imaginary world, with Greece once again under German occupation. This time it was the Fourth Reich of the iron lady chancellor. The Greek politicians were Quislings and traitors '' and some of these radio journalists actually saw the Wehrmacht patrolling our streets.
Of course, the Germans are to blame for some things '' especially their approach to Greece's problems, which was almost military. The troika just ordered people around. Trying to reform a country and change the mentality of an entire nation, without taking into consideration its customs and ways of thinking, can be lethal.
The problem with northern Europeans is that they regard Greece as a typical European nation. This is not true. Greece is different. It has not experienced all the ideological movements that formed western Europe. There has been no Renaissance, Reformation or Enlightenment. It is a border country between east and west. According to Samuel P Huntington (in his The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order), it belongs to an entirely different civilisation: the Orthodox one, together with Serbia and Russia.
Having had a lot of problems with the west (starting with the Fourth Crusade, which instead of liberating Jerusalem sacked Constantinople), Greeks have always felt a deep mistrust of western initiatives. Being insecure because of their problematic identity (east-west/ancient-modern) they tend to reject change and restructuring. Theoretically they like reforms '' as long as they do not affect their life.(This is why Greek politicians have been consistently sabotaging all changes, in order not to confront their electoral clients and the almighty unions of the public sector.) So instead of reforms, Greeks got pay cuts and austerity measures that resulted in a 26% unemployment rate '' and a 25% loss of national income.
No one explained to suffering and worried people how and why reforms would help them earn more, live better, feel more secure. Neither the Greek politicians nor western bureaucrats have done anything to sell these programmes to the Greeks. So it is understandable that they would feel oppressed and reacted negatively.
The left and Alexis Tsipras profited from this reaction and promised to liberate people from oppression. That gained them victory. But now they feel trapped because, as they very well know, reforms are necessary. In many ways Greece (especially the public sector) still belongs to the 19th or early 20th century. But how do you go back on your (highly charged) words? As a policy, it is better to blame the Germans. For everything.
It's a very old propaganda trick: you fabricate an enemy, a culprit, a scapegoat, and throw all responsibility on them. Given the historical context and the behaviour of Wolfgang Sch¤uble, who was wagging his admonishing index finger at Greeks for four years '' this was an easy job.
So it came to be that our ex-beloved nation became our arch-enemy.
Nikos Dimou is author of 65 books, including the international bestsellerOn the Unhappiness of Being Greek
1832 Otto of Wittelsbach becomes first king of the new state of Greece. The young Bavarian arrives with an entourage of thousands of German-speaking advisers. Until 1835, when the teenaged king turns of age, the country is governed by a regency council of three Bavarians. The ''Bavarocracy'' is soon resented, not least for its policy of enforcing heavy taxes on Greeks.
1843 King forced to grant a constitution. The Bavarian royal had refused to convert from Catholicism to Orthodoxy.
1862 Assassination attempt against the queen followed by coup and Otto's overthrow.
1940 December: Hitler, after Greek forces defeat Mussolini's invasion, sends German troops across the Bulgarian border to invade Greece. Desperate to avoid hostilities, Greek politicians and generals plead with Germans not to attack.
1941 April: German Wehrmacht invades Greece. Greek army overwhelmed, with German troops reaching the strategic town of Ioannina on 20 April, Hitler's birthday. Athens capitulates the next day.
1941-44 Brutal occupation by Germany ensues; 300,000 Greeks die of hungerin one of Europe's worst famines to hit Europe ever; 130,000 are killed in reprisals (150 Greeks for every German soldier); hyper-inflation, five times worse than that seen during the Weimar period in 1920s, flourishes. more than 1.2 million Greeks made homeless; the Jewish community, one of the most ancient in Europe, is exterminated almost in its entirety. National gold stock, in the form of a forced loan, is snatched from the vaults of the central Bank of Greece to finance Hitler's campaign in North Africa.
1944 Waffen-SS march into village of Distomo, near Delphi, on 10 June and kill 218 men, women and children in reprisal for guerrilla attack in which seven German soldiers die. Bodies are left dangling from trees in one of the most heinous atrocities of the second world war.
1950 onwards 300,000 Greeks flock to Germany in search of work after country is ravaged by the 1946-49 civil war.
1953 At the Conference of London, creditor countries agree to forgive West Germany's massive debt. laying the ground for the country's economic miracle.Greece is among the signatories.
1960 In a bilateral out-of-court, state-to-state agreement, Germany gives Greece 115m deutschmarks ('¬57.5m) in damages for Nazi crimes. With the gesture, Germany says the outstanding issue of war reparations is closed. Greece subsequently virulently disagrees. Victims argue that the Treaty of Settlement had allowed them to file individual claims at a later date.
1990 The issue of war reparations is considered to have expired when the two Germanys unite.
1997 Survivors and relatives of victims of Distomo massacre file for compensation before a Greek district court which rules in their favour. Athens' supreme court orders seizure of German assets in Greece (an order no justice minister has enforcedto date).
2011 Socialist PM George Papandreou, battling a debt crisis, says he will formally support demands for war reparations in a case that no Greek government had previously dared to touch. ''This is not anti-German. This is about history,'' he says.
2012: International Court of Justice at The Hague rules in favour of Germany saying governments have immunity from foreign court judgments in cases brought by individuals.
2015 Tensions between Greece and Germany, provider of the bulk of Athens' international bailout, peak following election of the anti-austerity Syriza party. Prime minister Alexis Tsipras accuses Berlin of employing ''tricks'' to evade war reparations with his government openly raising the prospect of seizing German assets, including diplomatic buildings and the Goethe Institute. Athens says the forced loan, alone, with accrued interest would amount to a large part of the '¬240bn
it has received in emergency funds from the EU and IMF. The German chancellor Angela Merkel invites Tsipras to Berlin on 23 March in effort to ease relations.
Helena SmithAthens
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CYBER!
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Kaspersky slams Bloomberg report on company's alleged ties to Russian 'spies' '-- RT News
Sun, 22 Mar 2015 03:06
Published time: March 20, 2015 19:08Reuters / Sergei Karpukhin
Eugene Kaspersky, founder and CEO of the multibillion dollar private software security group, slammed the recent Bloomberg article as ''sensationalist'' and ''false,'' asking whether it could be linked to Equation Group revelations by his firm.
The Bloomberg article, with the catchy headline ''The Company Securing Your Internet Has Close Ties to Russian Spies'' was published on Thursday.
It alleges that Kaspersky Lab, a private software security company owned by Russian national Eugene Kaspersky, ignores Russian electronic espionage cases , while only unveils cybercrimes in the ''US , Israel, and the EU.''
On Friday, Kaspersky published a response to these accusations saying they are ''false''.
''It's been a long time since I read an article so inaccurate from the get-go '' literally from the title and the article's subheading. So it came as little surprise that a large part of the rest of the article is simply false. Speculations, assumptions and unfair conclusions based on incorrect facts,'' he wrote.
''The journalists don't mention that we are impartial in our fight against cybercrime, no matter where it strikes. A warning, dear readers: don't believe everything you read!''
He also hinted that the Bloomberg report may be connected to Kaspersky Labs' recent research into the hacking collective known as the Equation Group which is apparently linked to the US National Security Agency.
''The fashionable fever of looking for Kremlin-linked conspiracies this week reached some journalists at Bloomberg. Curiously, this happened not long after our investigation into the Equation Group.''
READ MORE: 'Equation Group' hackers tied to NSA after new Kaspersky Labs report surfaces
Kaspersky also refuted claims that he used to work for KGB, notorious Soviet security agency.
''After graduating, I worked for the Ministry of Defense as a software engineer for several years. But whatever'... as they say, 'never let the facts get in the way of a good story'. Right?''
On the issue of hiring people with ''closer ties to Russia's military or intelligence services,'' Kaspersky said that it was ''nonsense,'' adding that he only values professional qualities.
He added that his company does cooperate with ''law enforcement agencies around the globe (including in the US, the UK, Japan, other European countries; INTERPOL and Europol)'' as without such cooperation ''our battle would have been significantly less effective than it has been recreational '' if not completely futile.''
Concerning the accusation that Kaspersky Lab failed to report the ''Russian links to sophisticated spyware known as Sofacy'', he said that the US network security company FireEye already did great research on that and the company saw no point in repeating it.
''BTW, our experts are still working on it, as it's closely connected to the MiniDuke operation. But please don't ask why FireEye didn't announce MiniDuke! You know the answer (hint: who was the first to uncover it?).''
Bloomberg journalists also cited an alleged '' internal'' email that only Russians could be appointed to company's highest positions after Kaspersky Lab scrapped an IPO partnership with Greenwich (Conn.) investment firm General Atlantic in 2012 .
''That is false statement. We've launched an internal investigation, carefully examined all our archives for the last three years, and haven't found such an email,'' Kaspersky wrote in his blog.
The company's CEO also refuted claims that Kaspersky Lab that the Computer Incidents Investigation Unit (CIIU) has remote access to the personal data of its users.
'''...I've no reason to risk my $700mln business. Everything we do and can do is stated in the End-User License Agreement (EULA). Moreover, we reveal our source code to large customers and governments. If you have any fears about backdoors '' come and check.''
Kaspersky Lab is world's largest privately held vendor of endpoint protection solutions. It is registered in the UK and operates in almost 200 countries and territories worldwide. Kaspersky has slammed the Bloomberg report on the company's alleged ties to Russian 'spies'.
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Presidential Memorandum -- Establishing the Director of White House Information Technology and the Executive Committee for Presidential Information Technology
Sun, 22 Mar 2015 06:11
The White House
Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release
March 19, 2015
MEMORANDUM FOR THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE
THE SECRETARY OF HOMELAND SECURITY
THE DIRECTOR OF THE OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET
THE NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR
THE DIRECTOR OF THE OFFICE OF ADMINISTRATION
SUBJECT: Establishing the Director of White House Information Technology and the Executive Committee for Presidential Information Technology
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, and in order to improve the information resources and information systems provided to the President, Vice President, and Executive Office of the President (EOP), I hereby direct the following:
Section1. Policy. The purposes of this memorandum are to ensure that the information resources and information systems provided to the President, Vice President, and EOP are efficient, secure, and resilient; establish a model for Government information technology management efforts; reduce operating costs through the elimination of duplication and overlapping services; and accomplish the goal of converging disparate information resources and information systems for the EOP.
This memorandum is intended to maintain the President's exclusive control of the information resources and information systems provided to the President, Vice President, and EOP. High-quality, efficient, interoperable, and safe information systems and information resources are required in order for the President to discharge the duties of his office with the support of those who advise and assist him, and with the additional assistance of all EOP components. The responsibilities that this memorandum vests in the Director of White House Information Technology, as described below, have been performed historically within the EOP, and it is the intent of this memorandum to continue this practice.
The Director of White House Information Technology, on behalf of the President, shall have the primary authority to establish and coordinate the necessary policies and procedures for operating and maintaining the information resources and information systems provided to the President, Vice President, and EOP. Nothing in this memorandum may be construed to delegate the ownership, or any rights associated with ownership, of any information resources or information systems, nor of any record, to any entity outside of the EOP.
Sec. 2. Director of White House Information Technology.
There is hereby established the Director of White House Information Technology (Director). The Director shall be the senior officer responsible for the information resources and information systems provided to the President, Vice President, and EOP by the Presidential Information Technology Community(Community). The Director shall:
be designated by the President;
have the rank and status of a commissioned officer in the White House Office; and
have sufficient seniority, education, training, and expertise to provide the necessary advice, coordination, and guidance to the Community.
The Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations shall provide the Director with necessary direction and supervision.
The Director shall ensure the effective use of information resources and information systems provided to the President, Vice President, and EOP in order to improve mission performance, and shall have the appropriate authority to promulgate all necessary procedures and rules governing these resources and systems. The Director shall provide policy coordination and guidance for, and periodically review, all activities relating to the information resources and information systems provided to the President, Vice President, and EOP by the Community, including expenditures for, and procurement of, information resources and information systems by the Community. Such activities shall be subject to the Director's coordination, guidance, and review in order to ensure consistency with the Director's strategy and to strengthen the quality of the Community's decisions through integrated analysis, planning, budgeting, and evaluation processes.
The Director may advise and confer with appropriate executive departments and agencies, individuals, and other entities as necessary to perform the Director's duties under this memorandum.
Sec. 3. Executive Committee for Presidential InformationTechnology. There is hereby established an Executive Committee for Presidential Information Technology (Committee). The Committee consists of the following officials or their designees: the Assistant to the President for Management and Administration; the Executive Secretary of the National Security Council; the Director of the Office of Administration; the Director of the United States Secret Service; and the Director of the White House Military Office.
Sec. 4. Administration. (a) The President or the Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations may assign the Director and the Committee any additional functions necessary to advance the mission set forth in this memorandum.
The Committee shall advise and make policy recommendations to the Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations and the Director with respect to operational and procurement decisions necessary to achieve secure, seamless, reliable, and integrated information resources and information systems for the President, Vice President, and EOP. The Director shall update the Committee on both strategy and execution, as requested, including collaboration efforts with the Federal Chief Information Officer, with other government agencies, and by participating in the Chief Information Officers Council.
The Secretary of Defense shall designate or appoint a White House Technology Liaison for the White House Communications Agency and the Secretary of Homeland Security shall designate or appoint a White House Technology Liaison for the United States Secret Service. Any entity that becomes a part of the Community after the issuance of this memorandum shall designate or appoint a White House Technology Liaison for that entity. The designation or appointment of a White House Technology Liaison is subject to the review of, and shall be made in consultation with, the President or his designee. The Chief Information Officer of the Office of Administration and the Chief Information Officer of the National Security Council, and their successors in function, are designated as White House Technology Liaisons for their respective components. In coordination with the Director, the White House Technology Liaisons shall ensure that the day-to-day operation of and long-term strategy for information resources and information systems provided to the President, Vice President, and EOP are interoperable and effectively function as a single, modern, and high-quality enterprise that reduces duplication, inefficiency, and waste.
The President or his designee shall retain the authority to specify the application of operating policies and procedures, including security measures, which are used in the construction, operation, and maintenance of any information resources or information system provided to the President, Vice President, and EOP.
Presidential Information Technology Community entities shall:
assist and provide information to the Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations and the Director, consistent with applicable law, as may be necessary to implement this memorandum; and as soon as practicable after the issuance of this memorandum, enter into any memoranda of understanding as necessary to give effect to the provisions of this memorandum.
As soon as practicable after the issuance of this memorandum, EOP components shall take all necessary steps, either individually or collectively, to ensure the proper creation, storage, and transmission of EOP information on any information systems and information resources provided to the President, Vice President, and EOP.
Sec. 5. Definitions. As used in this memorandum:
"Information resources," "information systems," and "information technology" have the meanings assigned by section 3502 of title 44, United States Code. "Presidential Information Technology Community" means the entities that provide information resources and information systems to the President, Vice President, and EOP, including:
the National Security Council; the Office of Administration; the United States Secret Service; the White House Military Office; and the White House Communications Agency.
"Executive Office of the President" means:
each component of the EOP as is or may hereafter be established;any successor in function to an EOP component that has been abolished and of which the function is retained in the EOP; andthe President's Commission on White House Fellowships, the President's Intelligence Advisory Board, the Residence of the Vice President, and such other entities as the President from time to time may determine. Sec. 6. General Provisions. (a) Nothing in this memorandum shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:
the authority granted by law to an executive department, agency, entity, office, or the head thereof; or the functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.
This memorandum shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and appropriate protections for privacy and civil liberties, and subject to the availability of appropriations. This memorandum is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.BARACK OBAMA
Exclusive: Facebook Engineering Director Is Headed to the White House
Thu, 19 Mar 2015 22:39
David Recordon (Photo: Brian Solis/Wikipedia).
The White House just added another Silicon Valley veteran to its growing roster of tech experts.
This afternoon, President Barack Obama will announce a newly created position for David Recordon, who has worked as one of Facebook's engineering directors since 2009. Recordon will join the White House as the director of information technology, perhaps the most glorified IT position in history.
Recordon, according to a statement from the White House, will ''ensure that the technology utilized by the White House is efficient, effective, and secure.'' He'll lead the effort to merge any overlapping systems and ensure that the government's software is up-to-date and just as secure as software in the private sector.
Recordon's appointment is part of a recent effort by the Obama administration to grow its dedicated tech staff. Last year, the president launched the U.S. Digital Service, hiring former Google engineer Mikey Dickerson to lead it. Dickerson played a fundamental role on the team that rescued HealthCare.gov after its catastrophic launch in 2013. His hiring signaled a new focus on remodeling the government's digital presence. The USDS team, as Chief Information Officer Steve VanRoekel said in 2014, is tasked with ''removing barriers to exceptional Government service delivery and remaking the digital experiences that citizens and businesses have with their Government.''
Along with Dickerson, Recordon joins a growing cadre of D.C. techies who've been plucked from America's most successful Internet companies. In September 2014, Obama named Megan Smith '-- former vice president of Google's research lab '-- as his new chief technology officer and former Twitter general counsel Alexander Macgillivray as her deputy. In February, he created a new position with a wordy title '-- chief data scientist and deputy chief technology officer for data policy '-- for D.J. Patil, who had previously worked for such companies as LinkedIn, eBay, and Skype.
Recordon studied information technology and criminal justice at the Rochester Institute of Technology but dropped out in 2006 to work as an engineer at a number of startups, including Verisign and Six Apart. As a longtime advocate of open source '-- an online model that allows free access to websites' source code '-- Recordon was awarded the Google-O'Reilly Open Source Award in 2007. He's an advocate for technologies such as OpenID, an online authentication technology that allows you to log in to multiple websites with the same secure ID.
At Facebook, he helped create internal productivity tools for his colleagues, including technology that aided the company's human resources, videoconferencing, and security efforts. He also supervised projects related to open source and engineering education.
At the White house, in front of the president's podium (Photo: Via Facebook)
After a visit to the White House in March 2014, during which he took a selfie in front of the podium in the room where the president gives press conferences, Recordon hinted at his growing involvement with the U.S. Digital Service.
''In silicon valley we talk about 'impact' all of the time,'' he wrote in a Facebook post on Aug. 21, 2014. ''I'm writing this while I lay at home on my couch doing laundry when there are multiple startups who would happily come pick it up and do it for me with nothing more than a few taps on my iPhone 5S. Now don't get me wrong, there are plenty of absolutely serious companies who truly impact lives on a daily basis but the United States government serves all of us in ways the venture capital fueled valley does not. '... While I'm not planning to move to DC or to go work for the government,'' he concluded, ''I hope to continue finding ways to help these teams learn how to build high-quality technology.''
Judging from the Lego model of the White House that he posted on his Facebook page earlier this month, he's changed his mind about the move.
Follow Alyssa Bereznak on Twitter or email her.
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SnowJob
US Threatened Germany Over Snowden, Vice Chancellor Says
Fri, 20 Mar 2015 04:31
German Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel (above) said this week in Homburg that the U.S. government threatened to cease sharing intelligence with Germany if Berlin offered asylum to NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden or otherwise arranged for him to travel to that country. ''They told us they would stop notifying us of plots and other intelligence matters,'' Gabriel said.
The vice chancellor delivered a speech in which he praised the journalists who worked on the Snowden archive, and then lamented the fact that Snowden was forced to seek refuge in ''Vladimir Putin's autocratic Russia'' because no other nation was willing and able to protect him from threats of imprisonment by the U.S. government (I was present at the event to receive an award). That prompted an audience member to interrupt his speech and yell out: ''Why don't you bring him to Germany, then?''
There has been a sustained debate in Germany over whether to grant asylum to Snowden, and a major controversy arose last year when a Parliamentary Committee investigating NSA spying divided as to whether to bring Snowden to testify in person, and then narrowly refused at the behest of the Merkel government. In response to the audience interruption, Gabriel claimed that Germany would be legally obligated to extradite Snowden to the U.S. if he were on German soil.
Afterward, however, when I pressed the vice chancellor (who is also head of the Social Democratic Party, as well as the country's economy and energy minister) as to why the German government could not and would not offer Snowden asylum '-- which, under international law, negates the asylee's status as a fugitive '-- he told me that the U.S. government had aggressively threatened the Germans that if they did so, they would be ''cut off'' from all intelligence sharing. That would mean, if the threat were carried out, that the Americans would literally allow the German population to remain vulnerable to a brewing attack discovered by the Americans by withholding that information from their government.
This is not the first time the U.S. has purportedly threatened an allied government to withhold evidence of possible terror plots as punishment. In 2009, a British national, Binyam Mohamed, sued the U.K. government for complicity in his torture at Bagram and Guantnamo. The High Court ordered the U.K. government to provide Mohamed's lawyers with notes and other documents reflecting what the CIA told British intelligence agents about Mohamed's abuse.
In response, the U.K. government insisted that the High Court must reverse that ruling because the safety of British subjects would be endangered if the ruling stood. Their reasoning: the U.S. government had threatened the British that they would stop sharing intelligence, including evidence of terror plots, if they disclosed what the Americans had told them in confidence about Mohamed's treatment '-- even if the disclosure were ordered by the High Court as part of a lawsuit brought by a torture victim. British government lawyers even produced a letter from an unnamed Obama official laying out that threat.
In the Mohamed case, it is quite plausible that the purported ''threat'' was actually the byproduct of collaboration between the U.S. and U.K. governments, as it gave the British a weapon to try to scare the court into vacating its ruling: you're putting the lives of British subjects in danger by angering the Americans. In other words, it is quite conceivable that the British asked the Americans for a letter setting forth such a threat to enable them to bully the British court into reversing its disclosure order.
In the case of Germany, no government official has previously claimed that they were threatened by the U.S. as an excuse for turning their backs on Snowden, whose disclosures helped Germans as much as any population outside of the U.S. Pointing to such threats could help a German political official such as the vice chancellor justify what is otherwise an indefensible refusal to protect the NSA whistleblower from persecution at home, though it seems far more plausible '-- given far more extremist U.S. behavior in the Snowden case '-- that Gabriel's claims are accurate.
Nonetheless, one of two things is true: 1) the U.S. actually threatened Germany that it would refrain from notifying them of terrorist plots against German citizens and thus deliberately leave them vulnerable to violent attacks, or 2) some combination of high officials from the U.S. and/or German governments are invoking such fictitious threats in order to manipulate and scare the German public into believing that asylum for Snowden will endanger their lives. Both are obviously noteworthy, though it's hard to say which is worse.
Photo: Sean Gallup/Getty Images
Agenda 21
Executive Order -(iv) utilizing energy from new small modular nuclear reactor technologies;- -Planning for Federal Sustainability in the Next Decade | The White House
Sun, 22 Mar 2015 05:43
The White House
Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release
March 19, 2015
EXECUTIVE ORDER
- - - - - - -
PLANNING FOR FEDERAL SUSTAINABILITY IN THE NEXT DECADE
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, and in order to maintain Federal leadership in sustainability and greenhouse gas emission reductions, it is hereby ordered as follows:
Section 1. Policy. Executive departments and agencies (agencies) have been among our Nation's leaders as the United States works to build a clean energy economy that will sustain our prosperity and the health of our people and our environment for generations to come. Federal leadership in energy, environmental water, fleet, buildings, and acquisition management will continue to drive national greenhouse gas reductions and support preparations for the impacts of climate change. Through a combination of more efficient Federal operations such as those outlined in this Executive Order (order), we have the opportunity to reduce agency direct greenhouse gas emissions by at least 40 percent over the next decade while at the same time fostering innovation, reducing spending, and strengthening the communities in which our Federal facilities operate.
It therefore continues to be the policy of the United States that agencies shall increase efficiency and improve their environmental performance. Improved environmental performance will help us protect our planet for future generations and save taxpayer dollars through avoided energy costs and increased efficiency, while also making Federal facilities more resilient. To improve environmental performance and Federal sustainability, priority should first be placed on reducing energy use and cost, then on finding renewable or alternative energy solutions. Pursuing clean sources of energy will improve energy and water security, while ensuring that Federal facilities will continue to meet mission requirements and lead by example. Employing this strategy for the next decade calls for expanded and updated Federal environmental performance goals with a clear overarching objective of reducing greenhouse gas emissions across Federal operations and the Federal supply chain.
Sec. 2. Agency Greenhouse Gas Emission Reductions. In implementing the policy set forth in section 1 of this order, the head of each agency shall, within 90 days of the date of this order, propose to the Chair of the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) and the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) percentage reduction targets for agency-wide reductions of scope 1 and 2 and scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions in absolute terms by the end of fiscal year 2025 relative to a fiscal year 2008 baseline. Where appropriate, the target shall exclude direct emissions from excluded vehicles and equipment and from electric power produced and sold commercially to other parties as the primary business of the agency. The proposed targets shall be subject to the review and approval of the Chair of CEQ in coordination with the Director of OMB under section 4(b) of this order.
Sec. 3. Sustainability Goals for Agencies. In implementing the policy set forth in section 1 of this order and to achieve the goals of section 2 of this order, the head of each agency shall, where life-cycle cost-effective, beginning in fiscal year 2016, unless otherwise specified:
(a) promote building energy conservation, efficiency, and management by:
(i) reducing agency building energy intensity measured in British thermal units per gross square foot by 2.5 percent annually through the end of fiscal year 2025, relative to the baseline of the agency's building energy use in fiscal year 2015 and taking into account agency progress to date, except where revised pursuant to section 9(f) of this order, by implementing efficiency measures based on and using practices such as:
(A) using remote building energy performance assessment auditing technology;
(B) participating in demand management programs;
(C) ensuring that monthly performance data is entered into the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager for covered buildings;
(D) incorporating, where feasible, the consensus-based, industry standard Green Button data access system into reporting, data analytics, and automation processes;
(E) implementing space utilization and optimization practices and policies;
(F) identifying opportunities to transition test-bed technologies to achieve the goals of this section; and
(G) conforming, where feasible, to city energy performance benchmarking and reporting requirements; and
(ii) improving data center energy efficiency at agency facilities by:
(A) ensuring the agency chief information officer promotes data center energy optimization, efficiency, and performance;
(B) installing and monitoring advanced energy meters in all data centers by fiscal year 2018; and
(C) establishing a power usage effectiveness target of 1.2 to 1.4 for new data centers and less than 1.5 for existing data centers;
(b) ensure that at a minimum, the following percentage of the total amount of building electric energy and thermal energy shall be clean energy, accounted for by renewable electric energy and alternative energy:
(i) not less than 10 percent in fiscal years 2016 and 2017;
(ii) not less than 13 percent in fiscal years 2018 and 2019;
(iii) not less than 16 percent in fiscal years 2020 and 2021;
(iv) not less than 20 percent in fiscal years 2022 and 2023; and
(v) not less than 25 percent by fiscal year 2025 and each year thereafter;
(c) ensure that the percentage of the total amount of building electric energy consumed by the agency that is renewable electric energy is:
(i) not less than 10 percent in fiscal years 2016 and 2017;
(ii) not less than 15 percent in fiscal years 2018 and 2019;
(iii) not less than 20 percent in fiscal years 2020 and 2021;
(iv) not less than 25 percent in fiscal years 2022 and 2023; and
(v) not less than 30 percent by fiscal year 2025 and each year thereafter;
(d) include in the renewable electric energy portion of the clean energy target established in subsection (b) of this section renewable electric energy as defined in section 19(v) of this order and associated with the following actions, which are listed in order of priority:
(i) installing agency-funded renewable energy on site at Federal facilities and retaining corresponding renewable energy certificates (RECs) or obtaining equal value replacement RECs;
(ii) contracting for the purchase of energy that includes the installation of renewable energy on site at a Federal facility or off site from a Federal facility and the retention of corresponding RECs or obtaining equal value replacement RECs for the term of the contract;
(iii) purchasing electricity and corresponding RECs or obtaining equal value replacement RECs; and
(iv) purchasing RECs;
(e) include in the alternative energy portion of the clean energy target established in subsection (b) of this section alternative energy as defined in section 19(c) of this order and associated with the following actions, where feasible:
(i) installing thermal renewable energy on site at Federal facilities and retaining corresponding renewable attributes or obtaining equal value replacement RECs where applicable;
(ii) installing combined heat and power processes on site at Federal facilities;
(iii) installing fuel cell energy systems on site at Federal facilities;
(iv) utilizing energy from new small modular nuclear reactor technologies;
(v) utilizing energy from a new project that includes the active capture and storage of carbon dioxide emissions associated with energy generation;
(vi) implementing other alternative energy approaches that advance the policy set forth in section 1 and achieve the goals of section 2 of this order and are in accord with any sustainability, environmental performance, and other instructions or guidance established pursuant to sections 4(e) and 5(a) of this order; and
(vii) including in the Department of Defense (DOD) accounting for alternative energy for this subsection, fulfillment of the requirements for DOD goals established under section 2852 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2007 as amended by section 2842 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010;
(f) improve agency water use efficiency and management, including stormwater management by:
(i) reducing agency potable water consumption intensity measured in gallons per gross square foot by 36 percent by fiscal year 2025 through reductions of 2 percent annually through fiscal year 2025 relative to a baseline of the agency's water consumption in fiscal year 2007;
(ii) installing water meters and collecting and utilizing building and facility water balance data to improve water conservation and management;
(iii) reducing agency industrial, landscaping, and agricultural (ILA) water consumption measured in gallons by 2 percent annually through fiscal year 2025 relative to a baseline of the agency's ILA water consumption in fiscal year 2010; and
(iv) installing appropriate green infrastructure features on federally owned property to help with stormwater and wastewater management;
(g) if the agency operates a fleet of at least 20 motor vehicles, improve agency fleet and vehicle efficiency and management by:
(i) determining, as part of the planning requirements of section 14 of this order, the optimum fleet inventory with emphasis placed on eliminating unnecessary or non-essential vehicles from the agency's fleet inventory;
(ii) taking actions that reduce fleet-wide per-mile greenhouse gas emissions from agency fleet vehicles, relative to a baseline of emissions in fiscal year 2014, to achieve the following percentage reductions:
(A) not less than 4 percent by the end of fiscal year 2017;
(B) not less than 15 percent by the end of fiscal year 2021; and
(C) not less than 30 percent by the end of fiscal year 2025;
(iii) collecting and utilizing as a fleet efficiency management tool, as soon as practicable but not later than 2 years after the date of this order, agency fleet operational data through deployment of vehicle telematics at a vehicle asset level for all new passenger and light duty vehicle acquisitions and for medium duty vehicles where appropriate;
(iv) ensuring that agency annual asset-level fleet data is properly and accurately accounted for in a formal agency Fleet Management System and any relevant data is submitted to the Federal Automotive Statistical Tool reporting database, the Federal Motor Vehicle Registration System, and the Fleet Sustainability Dashboard (FleetDASH) system;
(v) planning for agency fleet composition such that by December 31, 2020, zero emission vehicles or plug-in hybrid vehicles account for 20 percent of all new agency passenger vehicle acquisitions and by December 31, 2025, zero emission vehicles or plug-in hybrid vehicles account for 50 percent of all new agency passenger vehicles and including, where practicable, acquisition of such vehicles in other vehicle classes and counting double credit towards the targets in this section for such acquisitions; and
(vi) planning for appropriate charging or refueling infrastructure or other power storage technologies for zero emission vehicles or plug-in hybrid vehicles and opportunities for ancillary services to support vehicle-to-grid technology;
(h) improve building efficiency, performance, and management by:
(i) ensuring, beginning in fiscal year 2020 and thereafter, that all new construction of Federal buildings greater than 5,000 gross square feet that enters the planning process is designed to achieve energy net-zero and, where feasible, water or waste net-zero by fiscal year 2030;
(ii) identifying, beginning in June of 2016, as part of the planning requirements of section 14 of this order, a percentage of at least 15 percent, by number or total square footage, of the agency's existing buildings above 5,000 gross square feet that will, by fiscal year 2025, comply with the revised Guiding Principles for Federal Leadership in High Performance and Sustainable Buildings (Guiding Principles), developed pursuant to section 4 of this order, and making annual progress toward 100 percent conformance with the Guiding Principles for its building inventory;
(iii) identifying, as part of the planning requirements of section 14 of this order, a percentage of the agency's existing buildings above 5,000 gross square feet intended to be energy, waste, or water net-zero buildings by fiscal year 2025 and implementing actions that will allow those buildings to meet that target;
(iv) including in all new agency lease solicitations over 10,000 rentable square feet:
(A) criteria for energy efficiency either as a required performance specification or as a source selection evaluation factor in best-value tradeoff procurements; and
(B) requirements for building lessor disclosure of carbon emission or energy consumption data for that portion of the building occupied by the agency that may be provided by the lessor through submetering or estimation from pro-rated occupancy data, whichever is more cost-effective;
(v) reporting building energy, beginning in fiscal year 2016 as part of the agency scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions for newly solicited leases over 10,000 rentable square feet;
(vi) including in the planning for new buildings or leases cost-effective strategies to optimize sustainable space usage and consideration of existing community transportation planning and infrastructure, including access to public transit;
(vii) ensuring that all new construction, major renovation, repair, and alteration of agency buildings includes appropriate design and deployment of fleet charging infrastructure; and
(viii) including the incorporation of climate-resilient design and management elements into the operation, repair, and renovation of existing agency buildings and the design of new agency buildings;
(i) promote sustainable acquisition and procurement by ensuring that each of the following environmental performance and sustainability factors are included to the maximum extent practicable for all applicable procurements in the planning, award, and execution phases of the acquisition by:
(i) meeting statutory mandates that require purchase preference for:
(A) recycled content products designated by EPA;
(B) energy and water efficient products and services, such as ENERGY STAR qualified and Federal Energy Management Program (FEMP)-designated products, identified by EPA and the Department of Energy (DOE); and
(C) BioPreferred and biobased designated products designated by the United States Department of Agriculture;
(ii) purchasing sustainable products and services identified by EPA programs including:
(A) Significant New Alternative Policy (SNAP) chemicals or other alternatives to ozone-depleting substances and high global warming potential hydrofluorocarbons, where feasible, as identified by SNAP;
(B) WaterSense certified products and services (water efficient products);
(C) Safer Choice labeled products (chemically intensive products that contain safer ingredients); and
(D) SmartWay Transport partners and SmartWay products (fuel efficient products and services);
(iii) purchasing environmentally preferable products or services that:
(A) meet or exceed specifications, standards, or labels recommended by EPA that have been determined to assist agencies in meeting their needs and further advance sustainable procurement goals of this order; or
(B) meet environmental performance criteria developed or adopted by voluntary consensus standards bodies consistent with section 12(d) of the National Technology Transfer and Advancement Act of 1995 (Public Law 104-113) and OMB Circular A-119;
(iv) acting, as part of the implementation of planning requirements of section 14 of this order, until an agency achieves at least 95 percent compliance with the BioPreferred and biobased purchasing requirement in paragraph (i) of this subsection, to:
(A) establish an annual target for the number of contracts to be awarded with BioPreferred and biobased criteria and dollar value of BioPreferred and biobased products to be delivered and reported under those contracts in the following fiscal year. To establish this target, agencies shall consider the dollar value of designated BioPreferred and biobased products reported in previous years, the specifications reviewed and revised for inclusion of BioPreferred and biobased products, and the number of applicable product and service contracts to be awarded, including construction, operations and maintenance, food services, vehicle maintenance, and janitorial services; and
(B) ensure contractors submit timely annual reports of their BioPreferred and biobased purchases; and
(v) reducing copier and printing paper use and acquiring uncoated printing and writing paper containing at least 30 percent postconsumer recycled content or higher as designated by future instruction under section 4(e) of this order;
(j) advance waste prevention and pollution prevention by:
(i) reporting in accordance with the requirements of sections 301 through 313 of the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act of 1986 (42 U.S.C. 11001 through 11023);
(ii) diverting at least 50 percent of non-hazardous solid waste, including food and compostable material but not construction and demolition materials and debris, annually, and pursuing opportunities for net-zero waste or additional diversion opportunities;
(iii) diverting at least 50 percent of non-hazardous construction and demolition materials and debris; and
(iv) reducing or minimizing the quantity of toxic and hazardous chemicals and materials acquired, used, or disposed of, particularly where such reduction will assist the agency in pursuing agency greenhouse gas emission reduction targets established in section 2 of this order;
(k) implement performance contracts for Federal buildings by:
(i) utilizing performance contracting as an important tool to help meet identified energy efficiency and management goals while deploying life-cycle cost-effective energy efficiency and clean energy technology and water conservation measures;
(ii) fulfilling existing agency performance contracting commitments towards the goal of $4 billion in Federal performance-based contracts by the end of calendar year 2016; and
(iii) providing annual agency targets for performance contracting for energy savings to be implemented in fiscal year 2017 and annually thereafter as part of the planning requirements of section 14 of this order;
(l) promote electronics stewardship by establishing, measuring, and reporting by:
(i) ensuring procurement preference for environmentally sustainable electronic products as established in subsection (i) of this section;
(ii) establishing and implementing policies to enable power management, duplex printing, and other energy-efficient or environmentally sustainable features on all eligible agency electronic products; and
(iii) employing environmentally sound practices with respect to the agency's disposition of all agency excess or surplus electronic products.
Sec. 4. Duties of the Chair of the Council on Environmental Quality. In implementing the policy set forth in section 1 of this order, the Chair of CEQ shall:
(a) in coordination with the Director of OMB, establish a Federal Interagency Sustainability Steering Committee (Steering Committee) that shall advise the Director of OMB and the Chair of CEQ on the performance of agency responsibilities under sections 2 and 3 of this order and shall include the Federal Chief Sustainability Officer referenced in section 6 of this order and agency Chief Sustainability Officers designated under sections 7 and 8 of this order;
(b) in coordination with the Director of OMB review and approve agency-wide scope 1 and 2 and scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets developed under section 2 of this order;
(c) in coordination with the Director of OMB, prepare streamlined reporting metrics to determine each agency's progress under sections 2 and 3 of this order;
(d) review and evaluate each agency's Plan prepared under section 14 of this order;
(e) within 45 days of the date of this order and thereafter as necessary, after consultation with the Director of OMB, issue implementing instructions or other guidance to direct agency implementation of this order, other than instructions within the authority of the Director of OMB to issue under section 5 of this order;
(f) within 150 days of the date of this order, prepare and issue revised Guiding Principles for both new and existing Federal buildings including consideration of climate change resilience and employee and visitor wellness;
(g) revise, as necessary and in coordination with the Director of OMB, existing CEQ guidance and implementing instructions on Sustainable Locations for Federal Facilities of September 15, 2011, Sustainable Practices for Designed Landscapes of October 31, 2011, as supplemented on October 22, 2014, Federal Greenhouse Gas Accounting and Reporting Guidance [Revision 1] of June 4, 2012, and Federal Agency Implementation of Water Efficiency and Management Provisions of Executive Order 13514 of July 10, 2013;
(h) within 150 days of the date of this order, prepare and issue guidance to assist agencies in the implementation of section 13 of this order;
(i) identify annually, based on total contract spending in the previous fiscal year as reported in the Federal Procurement Data System, the seven largest Federal procuring agencies responsible for implementation of section 15(b) of this order;
(j) administer a Presidential leadership award program to recognize exceptional and outstanding performance and excellence in agency efforts to implement this order; and
(k) establish and disband, as appropriate, temporary interagency working groups to provide recommendations to the Chair of CEQ associated with the goals of this order, including: grid-based green power; data quality, collection, and reporting; greenhouse gas emissions associated with the transportation of Federal freight and cargo; sustainability considerations in resilience planning; agency supply chain climate vulnerability; recycled content paper; green infrastructure; and carbon uptake accounting and wood products.
Sec. 5. Duties of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget. In implementing the policy set forth in section 1 of this order, the Director of OMB shall:
(a) issue, after consultation with the Chair of CEQ, instructions to the heads of agencies concerning periodic performance evaluation of agency implementation of this order, including consideration of the results from section 4(c) of this order;
(b) prepare scorecards providing periodic evaluation of Principal Agency performance in implementing this order and publish scorecard results on a publicly available website; and
(c) review and approve each agency's Plan prepared under section 14 of this order.
Sec. 6. Duties of the Federal Chief Sustainability Officer. Henceforth, the Federal Environmental Executive is reestablished as the Federal Chief Sustainability Officer and the Office of the Federal Environmental Executive is reestablished as the Office of the Chief Sustainability Officer, for which the Environmental Protection Agency shall provide funding and administrative support and that shall be maintained at CEQ. In implementing the policy set forth in section 1 of this order, the Federal Chief Sustainability Officer shall:
(a) monitor progress and advise the Chair of CEQ on agency goals in sections 2 and 3 of this order;
(b) chair, convene, and preside at quarterly meetings; determine the agenda; and direct the work of the Steering Committee;
(c) lead the development of programs and policies to assist agencies in implementing the goals of this order in coordination with DOE, EPA, the General Services Administration (GSA), and other agencies as appropriate;
(d) coordinate and provide direction to relevant existing workgroups through quarterly meetings to ensure that opportunities for improvement in implementation of this order are identified and addressed; and
(e) advise the Chair of CEQ on the implementation of this order.
Sec. 7. Duties of Principal Agencies. To ensure successful implementation of the policy established in section 1 of this order, the head of each Principal Agency shall:
(a) designate, within 45 days of the date of this order, an agency Chief Sustainability Officer, who shall be a senior civilian officer of the United States, compensated annually in an amount at or above the amount payable at level IV of the Executive Schedule, and report such designation to the Director of OMB and the Chair of CEQ;
(b) assign the designated official the authority to represent the agency on the Steering Committee established under section 4 of this order and perform such other duties relating to the implementation of this order within the agency as the head of the agency deems appropriate;
(c) prepare and distribute internally, where appropriate, performance evaluations of agency implementation of this order that reflect the contribution of agency services, components, bureaus, and operating divisions to the goals of this order;
(d) ensure, as soon as practicable after the date of this order, that leases and contracts entered into after the date of this order for lessor or contractor operation of Government-owned buildings or vehicles facilitate the agency's compliance with this order;
(e) implement opportunities to improve agency fleet sustainability, including vehicle acquisitions as established in section 3(g) of this order, waiver authority, and fleet data management practices, by revising agency fleet management review and approval procedures to include the Chief Sustainability Officers designated under this section and section 8 of this order;
(f) consider the development of policies to promote sustainable commuting and work-related travel practices for Federal employees that foster workplace vehicle charging, encourage telecommuting, teleconferencing, and reward carpooling and the use of public transportation, where consistent with agency authority and Federal appropriations law;
(g) ensure regional agency actions consider and are consistent with, sustainability and climate preparedness priorities of States, local governments, and tribal communities where agency facilities are located;
(h) foster outstanding performance and excellence in agency efforts to implement this order through opportunities such as agency leadership award programs;
(i) continue implementation of formal Environmental Management Systems (EMS) where those systems have proven effective and deploy new EMSs where appropriate; and
(j) notwithstanding the limitations on implementation in section 17 of this order, apply, where feasible and appropriate, the strategies and plans to achieve the goals of this order in whole or in part with respect to fueling, operation, and management of tactical or emergency vehicles and to the activities and facilities of the agency that are not located within the United States.
Sec. 8. Duties of Contributing Agencies. Within 45 days of the date of this order, to ensure successful implementation of the policy established in section 1 of this order, the head of each contributing agency shall designate an agency Chief Sustainability Officer, who shall be a senior civilian officer of the United States, compensated annually in an amount at or above the amount payable at level IV of the Executive Schedule, and report such designation to the Director of OMB and the Chair of CEQ.
Sec. 9. Duties of the Agency Chief Sustainability Officers. The Chief Sustainability Officers designated under sections 7 and 8 of this order shall be responsible for:
(a) ensuring agency policies, plans, and strategies implemented to achieve the goals of this order consider the role of agency regional facilities and personnel and are integrated into agency permitting and environmental review policies, programs, and planning;
(b) developing and implementing an agency-wide strategic process that coordinates appropriate agency functions and programs to ensure that those functions and programs consider and address the goals of this order;
(c) reporting annually to the Chair of CEQ and Director of OMB a comprehensive inventory of progress towards the greenhouse gas emissions goals established in section 2 of this order;
(d) representing the agency on the Steering Committee;
(e) convening quarterly meetings of agency bureaus, commands, or operating divisions that are responsible for the implementation of strategies necessary to meet the goals of this order;
(f) representing the agency in any requests to the Chair of CEQ and Director of OMB to amend or normalize a baseline for goals established in this order due to change of greater than 5 percent as a result of agency space consolidation, a change in mission tempo, or improved data quality;
(g) providing plans, including the Plan prepared under section 14 of this order, reports, information, and assistance necessary to implement this order, to the Director of OMB, the Chair of CEQ, and the Federal Chief Sustainability Officer; and
(h) performing such other duties relating to the implementation of this order as the head of the agency deems appropriate.
Sec. 10. Regional Coordination. Within 180 days of the date of this order, each EPA and GSA Regional office shall in coordination with Federal Executive Boards established by the Presidential Memorandum of November 10, 1961 (The Need for Greater Coordination of Regional and Field Activities of the Government), DOD and other agencies as appropriate, convene regional interagency workgroups to identify and address:
(a) sustainable operations of Federal fleet vehicles, including identification and implementation of opportunities to use and share fueling infrastructure and logistical resources to support the adoption and use of alternative fuel vehicles, including E-85 compatible vehicles, zero emission and plug-in hybrid vehicles, and compressed natural gas powered vehicles;
(b) water resource management and drought response opportunities;
(c) climate change preparedness and resilience planning in coordination with State, local, and tribal communities; and
(d) opportunities for collective procurement of clean energy to satisfy energy demand for multiple agency buildings.
Sec. 11. Employee Education and Training. Within 180 days of the date of this order, the Office of Personnel Management, in coordination with DOE, GSA, EPA, and other agencies as appropriate, shall:
(a) consider the establishment of a dedicated Federal occupational series for sustainability professionals and relevant positions that directly impact the achievement of Federal sustainability goals and if appropriate, prepare and issue such occupational series; and
(b) initiate the inclusion of environmental sustainability and climate preparedness and resilience into Federal leadership and educational programs in courses and training, delivered through electronic learning, in classroom settings, and residential centers, particularly developmental training for Senior Executive Service and GS-15 personnel.
Sec. 12. Supporting the Federal Fleet. (a) GSA shall ensure that vehicles available to agencies for either lease or sale, at or below market cost, through its vehicle program include adequate variety and volume of alternative fuel vehicles, including zero emission and plug-in hybrid vehicles, to meet the fleet management goals of this order.
(b) DOE shall assist the United States Postal Service (USPS) in evaluating the best alternative and advanced fuel technologies for the USPS fleet and report on such progress annually as part of the planning requirements of section 14 of this order.
Sec. 13. Supporting Federal Facility Climate Preparedness and Resilience. The head of each agency shall, consistent with Executive Order 13653 of November 1, 2013, ensure that agency operations and facilities prepare for impacts of climate change as part of the planning requirements of section 14 of this order and consistent with planning required under section 5 of Executive Order 13653 by:
(a) identifying and addressing projected impacts of climate change on mission critical water, energy, communication, and transportation demands and considering those climate impacts in operational preparedness planning for major agency facilities and operations; and
(b) calculating the potential cost and risk to mission associated with agency operations that do not take into account the information collected in subsection (a) of this section and considering that cost in agency decision-making.
Sec. 14. Agency Strategic Sustainability Performance Plan. Beginning in June 2015, and continuing through fiscal year 2025, the head of each Principal Agency shall develop, implement, and annually update an integrated Strategic Sustainability Performance Plan (Plan) based on guidance prepared by the Chair of CEQ under section 4 of this order. Contributing agencies are encouraged to prepare a Plan but may limit content of the Plan to a summary of agency actions to meet the requirements of this order. Each Principal Agency Plan and update shall be provided to the Chair of CEQ and Director of OMB, shall be subject to approval by the Director under section 5 of this order, and shall be made publicly available on an agency website once approved.
Sec. 15. Supply Chain Greenhouse Gas Management. In implementing the greenhouse gas management policies in section 1 of this order and to better understand and manage the implications of Federal supply chain greenhouse gas emissions:
(a) the Chair of CEQ shall, within 30 days of the date of this order and annually thereafter, identify and publicly release an inventory of major Federal suppliers using publicly available Federal procurement information, including information as to whether the supplier has accounted for and publicly disclosed, during the previous calendar year, annual scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emission data and publicly disclosed a greenhouse gas emission reductions target (or targets) for 2015 or beyond; and
(b) the seven largest Federal procuring agencies shall each submit for consideration, in conjunction with the planning requirements of section 14 of this order, a plan to implement at least five new procurements annually in which the agency may include, as appropriate, contract requirements for vendors or evaluation criteria that consider contractor emissions and greenhouse gas emissions management practices. The plans submitted for consideration may include identification of evaluation criteria, performance period criteria, and contract clauses that will encourage suppliers to manage and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and shall be implemented as soon as practicable after any relevant administrative requirements have been met.
Sec. 16. Revocations and Conforming Provisions. (a) Pursuant to section 742(b) of Public Law 111-117, I have determined that this order will achieve equal or better environmental or energy efficiency results than Executive Order 13423. Therefore, Executive Order 13423 of January 24, 2007, is revoked.
(b) Executive Order 13514 of October 5, 2009; Presidential Memorandum of December 2, 2011 (Implementation of Energy Savings Projects and Performance-Based Contracting for Energy Savings); section 1 of Presidential Memorandum of February 21, 2012 (Driving Innovation and Creating Jobs in Rural America through Biobased and Sustainable Product Procurement); and Presidential Memorandum of December 5, 2013 (Federal Leadership on Energy Management), are revoked.
(c) Presidential Memorandum of May 24, 2011 (Federal Fleet Performance), is revoked as of October 1, 2015.
(d) Section 3(b)(vi) of Executive Order 13327 of February 4, 2004, is amended by striking "Executive Order 13148 of April 21, 2000" and inserting in lieu thereof "other Executive Orders".
(e) Section 2(d) of Executive Order 13432 of May 14, 2007, is amended to read as follows: "'greenhouse gases' means carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons, nitrogen triflouride, and sulfur hexafluoride;".
(f) Section 5 of Executive Order 13653 of November 1, 2013, is amended by striking "Executive Order 13514" and inserting in lieu thereof "other Executive Orders".
(g) Section 1 of Executive Order 13677 of September 23, 2014, is amended by striking "Executive Order 13514 of October 5, 2009 (Federal Leadership in Environmental, Energy, and Economic Performance), and Executive Order 13653 of November 1, 2013 (Preparing the United States for the Impacts of Climate Change)," and inserting in lieu thereof "Several Executive Orders have".
Sec. 17. Limitations. (a) This order shall apply to an agency with respect to the activities, personnel, resources, and facilities of the agency that are located within the United States. The head of an agency may provide that this order shall apply in whole or in part with respect to the activities, personnel, resources, and facilities of the agency that are not located within the United States, if the head of the agency determines that such application is in the interest of the United States.
(b) The head of an agency shall manage activities, personnel, resources, and facilities of the agency that are not located within the United States with respect to which the head of the agency has not made a determination under subsection (a) of this section in a manner consistent with the policy set forth in section 1 of this order to the extent the head of the agency determines practicable.
Sec. 18. Exemption Authority. (a) The Director of National Intelligence may exempt an intelligence activity of the United States, and related personnel, resources, and facilities, from the provisions of this order other than this subsection to the extent the Director determines necessary to protect intelligence sources and methods from unauthorized disclosure.
(b) The head of an agency may exempt law enforcement activities of that agency, and related personnel, resources, and facilities, from the provisions of this order other than this subsection to the extent the head of an agency determines necessary to protect undercover operations from unauthorized disclosure.
(c) The head of an agency may exempt law enforcement, protective, emergency response, or military tactical vehicle fleets of that agency from the provisions of this order other than this subsection. Heads of agencies shall manage fleets to which this paragraph refers in a manner consistent with the policy set forth in section 1 of this order to the extent they determine practicable.
(d) The head of an agency may exempt particular agency activities and facilities from the provisions of this order other than this subsection where it is in the interest of national security. If the head of an agency issues an exemption under this section, the agency must notify the Chair of CEQ in writing within 30 days of issuance of the exemption under this subsection. To the maximum extent practicable, and without compromising national security, each agency shall strive to comply with the purposes, goals, and implementation steps in this order.
(e) The head of an agency may submit to the President, through the Chair of CEQ, a request for an exemption of an agency activity, and related personnel, resources, and facilities, from this order.
Sec. 19. Definitions. As used in this order:
(a) "absolute greenhouse gas emissions" means total greenhouse gas emissions without normalization for activity levels and includes any allowable consideration of sequestration;
(b) "agency" means an executive agency as defined in section 105 of title 5, United States Code, excluding the Government Accountability Office;
(c) "alternative energy" means energy generated from technologies and approaches that advance renewable heat sources, including biomass, solar thermal, geothermal, waste heat, and renewable combined heat and power processes; combined heat and power; small modular nuclear reactor technologies; fuel cell energy systems; and energy generation, where active capture and storage of carbon dioxide emissions associated with that energy generation is verified;
(d) "alternative fuel vehicle" means vehicles defined by section 301 of the Energy Policy Act of 1992, as amended (42 U.S.C. 13211), and otherwise includes electric vehicles, hybrid electric vehicles, plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, dedicated alternative fuel vehicles, dual fueled alternative fuel vehicles, qualified fuel cell motor vehicles, advanced lean burn technology motor vehicles, low greenhouse gas vehicles, compressed natural gas powered vehicles, self-propelled vehicles such as bicycles, and any other alternative fuel vehicles that are defined by statute;
(e) "clean energy" means renewable electric energy and alternative energy;
(f) "climate resilient design" means to design assets to prepare for, withstand, respond to, or quickly recover from disruptions due to severe weather events and climate change for the intended life of the asset;
(g) "construction and demolition materials and debris" means waste materials and debris generated during construction, renovation, demolition, or dismantling of all structures and buildings and associated infrastructure;
(h) "Contributing Agencies" are defined as executive agencies that are not subject to the Chief Financial Officers Act and include Federal Boards, Commissions, and Committees;
(i) "divert" or "diverting" means redirecting materials from disposal in landfills or incinerators to recycling or recovery, excluding diversion to waste-to-energy facilities;
(j) "environmentally preferable" means products or services that have a lesser or reduced effect on human health and the environment when compared with competing products or services that serve the same purpose. This comparison may consider raw materials acquisition, production, manufacturing, packaging, distribution, reuse, use, operation, maintenance, or disposal related to the product or service;
(k) "excluded vehicles and equipment" means any vehicle, vessel, aircraft, or non-road equipment owned or operated by an agency of the Federal Government that is used in combat support, combat service support, tactical or relief operations, or training for such operations or spaceflight vehicles (including associated ground-support equipment);
(l) "Federal facility" means any building or collection of buildings, grounds, or structures, as well as any fixture or part thereof, which is owned by the United States or any Federal agency or that is held by the United States or any Federal agency under a lease-acquisition agreement under which the United States or a Federal agency will receive fee simple title under the terms of such agreement without further negotiation;
(m) "greenhouse gases" means carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons, nitrogen triflouride, and sulfur hexafluoride;
(n) "life-cycle cost-effective" means the life-cycle costs of a product, project, or measure are estimated to be equal to or less than the base case (i.e., current or standard practice or product);
(o) "net-zero energy building" means a building that is designed, constructed, or renovated and operated such that the actual annual source energy consumption is balanced by on-site renewable energy;
(p) "net-zero water building" means a building that is designed, constructed, or renovated and operated to greatly reduce total water consumption, use non-potable sources as much as possible, and recycle and reuse water in order to return the equivalent amount of water as was withdrawn from all sources, including municipal supply, without compromising groundwater and surface water quantity or quality;
(q) "net-zero waste building" means a building that is operated to reduce, reuse, recycle, compost, or recover solid waste streams (with the exception of hazardous and medical waste) thereby resulting in zero waste disposal;
(r) "passenger vehicle" means a sedan or station wagon designed primarily to transport people as defined in 102-34.35 of the Federal Management Regulation;
(s) "power usage effectiveness" means the ratio obtained by dividing the total amount of electricity and other power consumed in running a data center by the power consumed by the information and communications technology in the data center;
(t) "Principal Agencies" mean agencies subject to the Chief Financial Officers Act and agencies subject to the OMB Scorecard process under section 5(b) of this order;
(u) "renewable energy certificate" means the technology and environmental (non-energy) attributes that represent proof that 1 megawatt-hour (MWh) of electricity was generated from an eligible renewable energy resource, that can be sold separately from the underlying generic electricity with which they are associated, and that, for the purposes of section 3(d)(iii) and (iv) of this order, were produced by sources of renewable energy placed into service within 10 years prior to the start of the fiscal year;
(v) "renewable electric energy" means energy produced by solar, wind, biomass, landfill gas, ocean (including tidal, wave, current, and thermal), geothermal, geothermal heat pumps, microturbines, municipal solid waste, or new hydroelectric generation capacity achieved from increased efficiency or additions of new capacity at an existing hydroelectric project;
(w) "resilience" means the ability to anticipate, prepare for, and adapt to changing conditions and withstand, respond to, and recover rapidly from disruptions;
(x) "scope 1, 2, and 3" mean:
(i) scope 1: direct greenhouse gas emissions from sources that are owned or controlled by the agency;
(ii) scope 2: direct greenhouse gas emissions resulting from the generation of electricity, heat, or steam purchased by an agency;
(iii) scope 3: greenhouse gas emissions from sources not owned or directly controlled by an agency but related to agency activities such as vendor supply chains, delivery and transportation services, and employee travel and commuting;
(y) "United States" means the fifty States, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, the United States Virgin Islands, and the Northern Mariana Islands, and associated territorial waters and airspace;
(z) "water balance" means a comparison of the water supplied to a defined system to the water consumed by that system in order to identify the proportion of water consumed for specific end-uses and ensure potential water leaks in the system are addressed; and
(aa) "zero emission vehicle" means a vehicle that produces zero exhaust emissions of any criteria pollutant (or precursor pollutant) or greenhouse gas under any possible operational modes or conditions.
Sec. 20. General Provisions. (a) Nothing in this order shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:
(i) the authority granted by law to an executive department, agency, or the head thereof; or
(ii) the functions of the Director of OMB relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.
(b) This order shall be implemented in a manner consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations.
(c) This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.
BARACK OBAMA
THE WHITE HOUSE,March 19, 2015.
Why I am a Climate Change Skeptic | Heartlander Magazine
Sun, 22 Mar 2015 13:56
[Editor's Note: Patrick Moore, Ph.D., has been a leader in international environmentalism for more than 40 years. He cofounded Greenpeace and currently serves as chair of Allow Golden Rice. Moore received the 2014 Speaks Truth to Power Award at the Ninth International Conference on Climate Change, July 8, in Las Vegas. Watch his presentation about this piece at the video player to the left.]
I am skeptical humans are the main cause of climate change and that it will be catastrophic in the near future. There is no scientific proof of this hypothesis, yet we are told ''the debate is over'' and ''the science is settled.''
My skepticism begins with the believers' certainty they can predict the global climate with a computer model. The entire basis for the doomsday climate change scenario is the hypothesis increased atmospheric carbon dioxide due to fossil fuel emissions will heat the Earth to unlivable temperatures.
In fact, the Earth has been warming very gradually for 300 years, since the Little Ice Age ended, long before heavy use of fossil fuels. Prior to the Little Ice Age, during the Medieval Warm Period, Vikings colonized Greenland and Newfoundland, when it was warmer there than today. And during Roman times, it was warmer, long before fossil fuels revolutionized civilization.
The idea it would be catastrophic if carbon dioxide were to increase and average global temperature were to rise a few degrees is preposterous.
Recently, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) announced for the umpteenth time we are doomed unless we reduce carbon-dioxide emissions to zero. Effectively this means either reducing the population to zero, or going back 10,000 years before humans began clearing forests for agriculture. This proposed cure is far worse than adapting to a warmer world, if it actually comes about.
IPCC Conflict of Interest
By its constitution, the IPCC has a hopeless conflict of interest. Its mandate is to consider only the human causes of global warming, not the many natural causes changing the climate for billions of years. We don't understand the natural causes of climate change any more than we know if humans are part of the cause at present. If the IPCC did not find humans were the cause of warming, or if it found warming would be more positive than negative, there would be no need for the IPCC under its present mandate. To survive, it must find on the side of the apocalypse.
The IPCC should either have its mandate expanded to include all causes of climate change, or it should be dismantled.
Political Powerhouse
Climate change has become a powerful political force for many reasons. First, it is universal; we are told everything on Earth is threatened. Second, it invokes the two most powerful human motivators: fear and guilt. We fear driving our car will kill our grandchildren, and we feel guilty for doing it.
Third, there is a powerful convergence of interests among key elites that support the climate ''narrative.'' Environmentalists spread fear and raise donations; politicians appear to be saving the Earth from doom; the media has a field day with sensation and conflict; science institutions raise billions in grants, create whole new departments, and stoke a feeding frenzy of scary scenarios; business wants to look green, and get huge public subsidies for projects that would otherwise be economic losers, such as wind farms and solar arrays. Fourth, the Left sees climate change as a perfect means to redistribute wealth from industrial countries to the developing world and the UN bureaucracy.
So we are told carbon dioxide is a ''toxic'' ''pollutant'' that must be curtailed, when in fact it is a colorless, odorless, tasteless, gas and the most important food for life on earth. Without carbon dioxide above 150 parts per million, all plants would die.
Human Emissions Saved Planet
Over the past 150 million years, carbon dioxide had been drawn down steadily (by plants) from about 3,000 parts per million to about 280 parts per million before the Industrial Revolution. If this trend continued, the carbon dioxide level would have become too low to support life on Earth. Human fossil fuel use and clearing land for crops have boosted carbon dioxide from its lowest level in the history of the Earth back to 400 parts per million today.
At 400 parts per million, all our food crops, forests, and natural ecosystems are still on a starvation diet for carbon dioxide. The optimum level of carbon dioxide for plant growth, given enough water and nutrients, is about 1,500 parts per million, nearly four times higher than today. Greenhouse growers inject carbon-dioxide to increase yields. Farms and forests will produce more if carbon-dioxide keeps rising.
We have no proof increased carbon dioxide is responsible for the earth's slight warming over the past 300 years. There has been no significant warming for 18 years while we have emitted 25 per cent of all the carbon dioxide ever emitted. Carbon dioxide is vital for life on Earth and plants would like more of it. Which should we emphasize to our children?
Celebrate Carbon Dioxide
The IPCC's followers have given us a vision of a world dying because of carbon-dioxide emissions. I say the Earth would be a lot deader with no carbon dioxide, and more of it will be a very positive factor in feeding the world. Let's celebrate carbon dioxide.
Patrick Moore (pmoore@allowgoldenricenow.org) was a cofounder and leader of Greenpeace for 15 years. He is now chair and spokesman for Allow Golden Rice.
Caliphate!
EMAIL: State dept says friend born in Israel is born in Jerusalem
Sun, 22 Mar 2015 15:22
War on Ammo
NRA-ILA | Anti-gun U.S. Rep. Eliot Engel Introduces Ammo Ban Legislation
Sun, 22 Mar 2015 02:05
On March 13, 2015, three days after the BATFE rescinded its proposed ammo ban framework regulation, anti-gun U.S. Representative Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.) introduced H.R. 1358, a bill designed to ban civilian use and possession of M855 ammunition. This is the same round that the BATFE, after meeting fierce bipartisan opposition from Capitol Hill and from NRA members and supporters across the country, decided to rescind its framework to ban M855 ammunition.
NRA opposes H.R. 1358 because it would restrict Second Amendment rights by banning common rifle ammunition used in America's most popular rifle. The BATFE and the Obama Administration failed to ban this ammunition through Executive fiat so Rep. Engel has decided to try and do so via the legislative process. This is the same Rep. Engel that voted multiple times, and cosponsored bills, to ban so-called assault weapons as well as online ammo sales. It is clear that Rep. Engel is not listening to the American people, who have time and again resisted these unconstitutional bans.
Please contact your U.S. Representative and urge him or her to OPPOSE H.R. 1358.
You can contact your U.S. Representative about this legislation by using our "Write Your Lawmakers" tool at www.NRAILA.org, or by phone at (202) 224-3121. (Please see related story on federal legislation introduced to prevent the Obama Administration from banning ammunition.)
Sir DH Slammer's analysis
Crackpot,
You've probably seen the latest gun related hysteria: "The M855 Penetrator round will be banned by the ATF" on your list of alternative news sites and looked no further.
Executive summary: This ban scare is a scam designed to increase ammo sales at inflated prices.
Background: Armor piercing ammunition is illegal if it can be fired from a hand gun capable of firing more than a single shot. (Citation)
Body:
There are a few problems with this ban threat:
1) Most notably the ATF cant create legislation out of thin air and they know it would be tied up in court for years.
2) The M855 round does not pass the legal test(s) to be classified as an armor piercing round according to existing law. The "green tip" is not an armor piercing round by definition, it is an enhanced penetrating round. Thats an important difference. Also it is the "Green tip" because it uses bismuth instead of lead and is therefore a more "green" ammunition for the environment.
But none of this matters because I PUT MY NO AGENDA THINKING CAP ON! Taking the above 2 points under consideration I smelled a scam and its a classic!
My deconstruction is that the US military recently updated the Military Specification for M16 ammunition from the M855 to M855A1. The A1 designation means this is version 2.0 of the projectile design and it significantly addresses most of the performance problems associated with the old M855 design. Most people arent aware of this update and think that the M855 "green tip penetrator" you can buy off the shelf at Cabela's is the same thing our boys are using to killing brown people in sand. The two ammo designations are VERY different.
But the ammo manufacturers and distributors have TONS of this "old" M855 ammo on hand that they cant sell to the military and with ammo prices coming back down lower than pre-Newtown prices, how can they unload it and make more money?
Answer: Get their friends at the BATFE to propse an ammo ban. Nothing, and I mean *NOTHING* spurs gun and ammo sales like a looming ban.
My Red Book entry on the subject would be that the ban never happens but M855 ammo manufacturers, distributors and sellers make a lot of money on the hyesteria in a very short time.
Thank you for your courage,
Sir DH Slammer, Baronet of Santa Barbara County
Open Carry email suggestion
the judge at whole foods reminded me of your ebola suit photo. i would like to suggest we combine the two & call it performance art.
cam
Vaccine$
Dear Prudence: Should I secretly vaccinate my grandson?
Sun, 22 Mar 2015 05:04
Emily YoffePhoto by Teresa Castracane.
Emily Yoffe, aka Dear Prudence, is online weekly to chat live with readers. This week, due to technical difficulties, Prudie responded to submitted questions offline. The edited write-up is below. (Sign up hereto get Dear Prudence delivered to your inbox each week. Read Prudie'sSlatecolumnshere. Send questions to Prudence atprudence@slate.com.)
Q. Should I Secretly Vaccinate My Grandson?: My son and daughter-in-law are well-educated, responsible people. But once they had their first child (my now-18-month-old darling grandson), they did their own ''research'' and decided not to vaccinate him for fear of ''pumping poison into his body'' and ''risking autism.'' My DIL has particularly strong views about this, and we've had many vocal arguments over the issue. Finally she decided she didn't want to fight me anymore, and the last time I brought this up she refused to bring my grandson to see me for several weeks. I know that due to herd immunity the chances of his catching a serious illness is not high, but I am still appalled he's exposed to risks unnecessarily. I am about to look after him for five days while his parents go on a trip and I am thinking I will just take him to the doctor myself and get him immunized.
A: I marvel with distress that in 2015 we are fighting the vaccination wars. It is deeply disturbing that people who should be able to weigh discredited so-called studies instead believe garbage, and so are willing to endanger their children and others. I sincerely hope this madness burns itself out before a lot more people get hurt. You're right that herd immunity should protect your grandson, but that is fading as large numbers of people refuse to vaccinate. The only solution seems to be for government to toughen the vaccination laws and close the loopholes that allow people to opt out for philosophical and so-called religious reasons. The laws need to make clear: no shot, no school. In the meantime, however, you cannot take your grandson to be vaccinated. For one thing, you don't have the standing to do this. For another, if it came out that you did, that would likely effectively end your relationship with your grandson. It's just not worth it. Let's hope this little boy does not get whooping cough, or measles or any of the other awful childhood diseases that medical science effectively wiped out, and misinformed parents are bringing back.
Q. Karma's Not Quick Enough: I am engaged to be married to a wonderful man who has a 7-year-old son with his ex-wife. The ex-wife'--let's call her Sarah'--also has a daughter with another man. She had her daughter when she was 22, and her daughter's biological father was 16 years old. Regardless of the law, I think the age difference is abhorrent. A 16-year-old is a child, and she was unfaithful to her boyfriend in order to sleep with and become pregnant by this boy. The problem is that Sarah has never let her daughter have any contact with her biological father (she says horrible things to her daughter about her father), and her new husband has no clue what kind of mean, fake person his wife is. Would it be totally wrong to send an *ahem* anonymous letter to her husband so that he's not in the dark about the monster he's married to? Karma has not caught up with her yet.
A: Darn karma'--where's that falling asteroid when you need one? I'm afraid the purpose of your trying to blow up these impending nuptials eludes me. If Sarah is as abhorrent a person as you say, this either has or will reveal itself to her next victim, as it did for your own husband when he was married to her. But it is not your place to make the big reveal. The person who matters most here is the 7-year-old who has had a tough start in life. So instead of trying to be the hand of karma, be a loving, supportive stepmother to a little boy who will collect many more psychological bruises through his childhood.
Q. Parsimonious Twerp: One of my in-laws is a successful athlete who's been paid over $150 million. My mother-in-law, this person's grandmother, has spent all her savings. She lives simply, but can't meet her expenses on Social Security alone. She's applying for food stamps and can't pay for all her medicines. The wealthy grandchild does nothing for her. Should I confront this young person? (I only see them at the holidays.) Or perhaps sell the story to TMZ?
A: Ah, another person who thinks she has been designated as karma's agent. So if you get a nice chunk of change from TMZ, do you plan to apply that to grandmother's meds, or perhaps you're realizing all this family trouble means you could really use a trip to St. Tropez, courtesy of TMZ. If your mother-in-law is in extremis, it sounds as if you and your spouse should organize the family and see how all of you can ease Grandmother's situation. Sure, it would be nice if Athlete Grandson kicked in some dough. But if you find him financially rich but morally bankrupt, you don't right this by becoming a purveyor of sleaze.
Q. Caregiver/Lover?: My fianc(C)e fell 35 feet and has a back fracture and major orthopedic surgery. Recovery is coming along, but, between her sleeping in the living room (she can't do stairs) and all the ''caregiving'' I have become responsible for, I am having trouble feeling like a ''lover'' and not her ''mother.'' She was talking about all the ways we might be able to accommodate her injuries and still have sex, but honestly? I'm feeling like that's the last thing on my mind! My workload at the house has doubled, my job is intense, and I have to keep it up because it's our main source of income now. While I appreciate she's been sitting around all day thinking up complicated ways to work around her disabilities, I am exhausted and really, all the medical stuff has made me not view her ''that way'' for the last month. How do I move from nurse to naughty nurse?
A: Thank goodness that she survived and in the long run will be fine. You are getting a real premarital test of ''in sickness and health,'' so I hope that despite the difficulties of caretaking'--and it is one of the hardest things to do'--this will eventually make you more bonded as a couple. Your fianc(C)e is obviously deeply appreciative of what you are doing for her, and she both wants to thank you and to feel like your partner, not your patient. I think there's a two-part solution here. I know money is tight, but check into whether insurance would provide some caretaking services. If you could get someone else in the house to attend to your fianc(C)e's needs'--which include some housekeeping and errand running'--that would mean you would feel less like her nurse. Maybe you are concerned she is too fragile for certain activities, but if her hands and mouth are available, both of you might enjoy her bringing you some well-deserved relief. That would be a pleasant change from bringing her trays of food. The way you get back to being a couple is by making space for treating each other as a couple. That would be therapeutic for both of you.
Q. Graduation Dinner: Who should pay for a graduation dinner? I'm graduating from school in Cambridge ;-) this May and I invited my divorced parents to come to the graduation. I was planning to pay for the graduation dinner to demonstrate that I was an adult. Plus, my family is staying in hotels and will be spending enough to come and support me on my big day. My dad went and invited 10 to 20 more relatives to come. These people are going to have to spring for flights and hotels. I don't know how to say it, but do I have to pay for dinner? I don't have that much money, but my dad has been known to get upset over bills. (He has the money.) What do I do?
A: I think the phrase is that you ''go to school in Boston.'' Picking up the tab for a dinner is a lovely gesture, but as you are about to see, adulthood just keeps rolling on and on and on and you don't want to prove you are an adult by getting stuck with a bill you can't pay. I don't understand your father's mass invitation. Any graduate is going to get only a small number of tickets. This may be good news for the folks in town to see you graduate either from Harvard or Lesley University, because as I've mentioned many times, sitting through graduation ceremonies is one of life's drearier milestones. You need to clarify immediately with your father what his plans are for these relatives. Not only do you have no home at which to entertain them, you don't have the money either. If it's a fiasco in the making, it's on Dad, not you. If your father wants to spring for a celebration that costs the equivalent of a semester of college, that's his choice.
Q. Workplace Bully: A few months ago, a woman from a different department started using our department lounge area to talk loudly on her phone. I asked her to stop, as our work requires a quieter environment. (I was the agreed department emissary; my peers were frustrated as well.) She rolled her eyes and left but started up again a few weeks ago. I went to her today and politely asked if she would go elsewhere, per our previous talk. Much to my shock, she laid into me. I firmly told her she was being disrespectful and needed to leave. She's married to a leader in the company, and I'm worried this will have long-term impact because she seems unafraid to make her opinions known. What can I do to protect myself? My boss is not a confrontational person, and I'm not sure he'll stand up for me.
A: This shouldn't require a confrontation with the spouse of a Mr. Big. It should simply mean that your lounge area is declared a quiet zone. Let's hope your boss is able enough to get some signs put up'--like those you see in restaurants and gyms'--about no cellphone calls in the lounge. Then if this woman plops down and starts yacking, all anyone has to do is point to the sign and ask her to please respect your workplace. If she won't, then HR should deal with someone violating company policy.
Q. Guest House Etiquette'--Who Pays?: We own a house down the street from our primary residence, which we use for short-term rentals and for visiting family. After each stay we have it professionally cleaned (a requirement for short-term rentals). When we invite family to stay, we cover this cost. From time to time, friends coming through town (for reasons other than to visit us) ask to stay there. Is it OK to ask them to pay the cleaning fee? What's a reasonable principle to determine when we ask someone to pay and when we don't?
A: You make extra cash by renting out a house. But friends who are not visiting you and are simply passing through town think they should be able to crash at your place and that you should pick up the tab for straightening out the mess they leave behind. I think they should not think that. If you want to have a friends-and-family discount rate for such situations, fine. But you need to tell your friends that this is a business enterprise for you. If that means they'd rather seek professional lodging, that sounds like a good deal for everyone.
Q. Birthday Blues: I'm a man in his 30s. For the past 10 years or so, I have detested my birthday. It's very nice that people want to wish me well and sing to me, and I've politely thanked everyone who's done so, but I don't enjoy any of it. How can I tell people that I don't wish to celebrate or acknowledge my birthday at all anymore? If there's no polite way to do this, should I just keep sucking it up?
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A: Once your mother stops sending out invitations for your birthday celebration, I'm not sure how everyone knows it's your birthday. If you've got it on your Facebook page, take it off. After you do that, surely only a dwindling band of people will consider observing your birthday on par with those of Christopher Columbus and George Washington. For those who do remember, yes, you have to suck it up and politely blow out the candle.
NA-Tech News
Elon Musk says ''range anxiety'' is a mental problem '' Quartz
Thu, 19 Mar 2015 22:32
Elon Musk suggested today that ''range anxiety'''--the malady that afflicts electric car drivers fearing that they will run out of charge in a bad neighborhood, at night, while it is snowing'--is a curable mental condition. And he has just the fix.
Musk unveiled new software for his 265-mile-capacity electric Model S that will keep a driver constantly informed of how much charge is left, warn when power is low, and suggest the closest place to get a free charge from Tesla's Supercharger network. With this tweak, ''you just can't run out of range accidentally,'' he told reporters in a conference call. The software update also includes a ''trip-planner'' that designs routes to hit Supercharger locations at convenient points.
An offhand remark that Musk made in his news conference was also interesting. Musk said that, in his estimation, the ideal range for an electric car is 250 to 300 miles on a single charge. That's why Teslas are engineered to go that far. He said that going 200 miles is just a ''passing grade'''--only just enough to be a serious electric.
But in the past, Musk has said that he is working on a $35,000 mass-market luxury car, the Model 3, to be unveiled in 2018 or so, that will go precisely that distance'--200 miles on a charge. So Musk appeared to be saying that his own market-beating car will be only so-so, judging by his own metric.
Or was he? We know that the Model 3 will have competition'--GM plans the 200-mile ''Bolt,'' also for $35,000. And BMW and Audi may have their own rivals in the 2018-2020 time frame. One wonders if Musk was signaling that the Model 3 will include a longer-range option that is in his self-declared 250- to 300-mile sweet spot.
It's hard to imagine that Musk would be happy with only a passing grade.
FB user fakes suicide to see how the Facebook suicide prevention tool works and lands in mental asylum
Fri, 20 Mar 2015 07:07
Facebook has rolled out a set of tools to keep a check on its users who are having suicidal tendencies and prevent these users from suicidal attempts. In case some user is having suicidal thoughts and mentions that in the Facebook posts and if a friend of that user reports it to Facebook then a third party will immediately review the post and Facebook would lock the suicidal user's account and the user will be made to read Facebook's suicide prevention materials.
Shane Tusch, a resident of San Mateo, wanted to check out if this suicide prevention tool is real or not!
On 26th February 2015, Tusch posted his frustrations regarding the stress he had been facing due to first amendment made to his home loan by the bank. He posted that he was undergoing trouble paying his bank debts for quite some time and in the post he declared that he would take his life in some public place.
Tusch's post read :''So I have decided to take my life in some very public way that will hopefully get people talking about the crimes these banks have payed off are governments and left their wives and kids in the streets. I think hanging myself from the Golden Gate Bridge with a big sign that says bank america killed me and left my wife and kids without a father or a home!''
Tusch's used his real Facebook profile to carry out the experiment and neither his family nor his friends knew about his experiment. Immediately, Tusch's friends responded to his frustrations as they were worried about him and one of his friends even tagged Facebook to his post.
Soon Tusch's Facebook account was locked and in the meantime some unknown person who read this post informed police. San Mateo police took Tusch in their custody and inquired him regarding the post which Tusch confirmed was written by him however he also made it clear to the police that he was not planning for a suicide, this was just to release his frustrations regarding the First Amendment made by Bank America and he wanted to get this in public.
Shane Tusch is a part time electrician by profession and also an activist.
Tusch was detained in a mental asylum for about 72 hours i.e. 3 days. Not only that it seems he was tested for TB, HIV and overall 7 blood tests done along with his urine tests. He also posted that he was kept in a very inhumane conditions.
With the depression being on its peak all around and people attempting suicides it seems that the step taken by Facebook to prevent the users from committing suicide is really good; however there has to be some proper methods which should be taken because if people like Shane Tusch are just using Facebook to release their frustrations on Facebook and get caught then it would be a great problem.
Besides if all people would be retained for 72 hours in mental asylum then that will be a great burden on the already overburdened mental health facilities, isn't it?
Ebola
Ebola-proof tablet designed by Google rolled out in Sierra Leone disease centre - Telegraph
Sat, 21 Mar 2015 22:57
MSF staff testing one of the Clinical Management Tablets at the Magburaka treatment centre in Sierra Leone
It was designed after a Medecins Sans Frontieres doctor working in the organisation's treatment centre told his colleague in London he was being forced to shout patient details over a fence from inside the protective zone where medics must be fully covered to avoid catching the deadly disease, since even passing a piece of paper to the outside could risk transmitting it.
Sierra Leone said on March 19, 2015 it will confine around 2.5 million people to their homes across the capital and in the north in a three-day shutdown aimed at stemming the Ebola epidemic
''He was shouting through a mask at the end of his ward round to someone on the other side of the fence who was writing the notes down and then entering them in a patient record,'' said Ivan Gayton, MSF's technology adviser.
''It was error prone, exhausting and it wasted five or 10 minutes of the hour medics can spend fully dressed inside the protective zone before they collapse from heat exhaustion.''
Mr Gayton approached several contacts in technology, including one in Google's Crisis Response Team. The company eventually assigned five engineers to work on a design and eight devices have now been distributed to medics at MSF's treatment centre in Sierra Leone.
Health workers from Sierra Leone's Red Cross Society Burial Team 7 preparing to carry a corpse out of a house in Freetown
Although cases are now tailing off, Mr Gayton said the information stored on the devices will help map symptom patterns and the open-source technology could be deployed for other disease outbreaks.
''Hiccups are a very distinctive sign of Ebola but we haven't known whether they were a good or bad sign,'' he said. ''Collecting more information increases our understanding of the disease which should increase our capacity to fight it.''
' Should the world still be worried about Ebola?' American health worker flown home from Africa after contracting Ebola' 'You cannot stop Ebola' US experts warned British troops' 'As long as there is even one case left, Ebola could still reignite'
Zombie$
AUSTIN-Zombie Apocalypse? Where to Hide - WSJ
Sun, 22 Mar 2015 04:19
March 19, 2015 11:46 a.m. ET Just a word of friendly advice'--if you ever find yourself in the midst of a zombie outbreak, steer clear of Scranton, Pa.
Researchers at Cornell University have developed a statistical model for simulating the spread of a fictional zombie epidemic. Detailed in a study submitted to the scientific-paper repository arXiv, the model identifies northeastern Pennsylvania as the U.S. location most at risk of being overrun by the undead.
To develop the model, scientists in Cornell's physics department broke down the U.S. population in a grid of roughly 3-kilometer-square boxes. They then built upon classic epidemiological models of infectious-disease transmission'--measles, the flu and the like'--to simulate a marauding band of undead ravaging the country.
What locales might those worried about zombies want to avoid? Highly populated areas are a bad bet in general, of course. But Alexander Alemi, a graduate student and one of the authors of the paper, notes that the most susceptible spots change over time.
Seven days after the initial outbreak, lower Manhattan, with the map's highest population density at 299,616 people, has the highest zombie susceptibility. In fact, the New York City metro area in general is probably best avoided, as are other large cities like Los Angeles, Chicago and Dallas.
By 28 days out, however, the pattern has shifted, Mr. Alemi says. Instead of individual cities being at the greatest risk, areas located between multiple major cities are most vulnerable. ''You start to see interactions between different cities,'' he says. While northeastern Pennsylvania, identified in the paper as the country's most vulnerable region, ''doesn't have a particularly high population itself, it is near all these other high population areas.''
This means that were a zombie outbreak to start in any of these nearby cities'--New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, D.C.'--the creatures would have a high probability of finding their way to northeastern Pennsylvania, which puts the area at especially high risk, Mr. Alemi notes.
Also a bad bet'--Bakersfield, Calif., which sits uncomfortably near San Diego, Los Angeles and San Francisco.
The best spots for riding out a zombie apocalypse are sparsely populated areas of Montana and Nevada, which remain untouched even four months in, note Mr. Alemi and his co-authors.
The subject matter is completely hypothetical, of course. But the Cornell team's zombie simulation could have applications for modeling real-life outbreaks, Mr. Alemi says.
VIDEO-CLIPS-DOCS
VIDEO- Patrick Moore- ICCC9 July 8, 2014 - YouTube
VIDEO-Plane skids off runway at LaGuardia, crashes through fence - CBS News
Sun, 22 Mar 2015 14:24
Last Updated Mar 5, 2015 9:56 PM EST
NEW YORK -- A Delta plane from Atlanta skidded off a runway at LaGuardia Airport while landing during a snowstorm Thursday and crashed through a chain-link fence, its nose coming to rest perilously close to the icy waters of a bay.
18Photos
Plane skids off runway at LaGuardiaDelta flight comes to rest with its nose perilously close to the edge of an icy bay
The nose was leaning on a berm that separates the runway from Flushing Bay. Passengers saddled with bags and bundled up in heavy coats and scarves were helped down from the wing and onto the snowy pavement, just feet from the water. Everyone was silent as the plane slid, but some children started crying after it came to a stop, passengers said.
"If we wouldn't have hit the snowbank, we'd be in the water right now," said Charles Runels, a passenger from Atlanta.
"We thought that we were in the water, everybody thought it was in the water and then they opened the back door and all the snow and things fell out and then the firemen came around helping everybody," another passenger told CBS New York.
Flight 1086, carrying 127 passengers and five crew members, veered off the runway at around 11:10 a.m., authorities said. Six people had non-life-threatening injuries, and at least two were taken to the hospital, according to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which runs the airport.
Passengers at LaGuardia took to social media to post video and images of the incident:
Malcolm Duckett, a marketing executive from Georgia, said passengers were told they had to exit over the wing because the front door was too close to the water.
"We landed pretty hard. I could see the damage to the wing. It was pretty torn up," he said. "It was riding across a fence for 10 seconds, and once we landed, we landed in the snow."
Duckett, who was seated near the left wing, said he could see the damaged wing. He climbed onto the right wing and then slid along it until firefighters helped him get down.
"As we walked across the runway, it was covered with so much snow that I was wondering who decided it was safe to land here," said Jane Kaufman, of Gainesville, Florida, who was visiting her daughter in Brooklyn.
Passengers trudged through the snow in an orderly line after climbing off the plane. The Port Authority said that the plane's emergency chutes did not deploy.
Scott Brenner, a former FAA assistant administrator, told CBSN that the fact that chutes did not deploy on the plane is "absolutely shocking."
The airport runway was plowed and two other pilots reported good braking conditions minutes before the Delta plane landed, said Patrick Foye, the Port Authority's executive director.
"The plane did not make contact with the water," Foye said. "Happily, that was not a risk today."
Foye says the pilot did everything he could to slow the aircraft. Both runways closed after the crash, but one reopened at 2 p.m.
The plane's wings appeared to be damaged in the crash landing and the aircraft was leaking a gallon of fuel a minute afterward, but the leak has since stopped, Foye said.
Among the passengers was New York Giants tight end Larry Donnell, who said he felt blessed to be safe after the scary landing.
"I feel fine physically and hopefully all the other passengers did not have any significant injuries," Donnell said in an email. "We were all shocked and alarmed when the plane started to skid, but most importantly, as far as I know, all of the passengers and flight crew were able to exit the plane safely."
Michael J. Moritz Jr., a well-known Broadway producer, said he was commenting on the heavy snow on the runway when the plane came in for a landing.
"Landing looked normal, didn't look abnormally rough at all," Moritz wrote in an email. "Once on the ground, the plane lost control very quickly, visibility was low."
Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines said passengers were bused to a terminal.
PlayVideo
CBSNDelta plane skids off the runway at NYC's LaGuardia Airport"CBS This Morning" co-anchor Norah O'Donnell was on a plane a LaGuardia airport when another plane skidded off the runway.
"CBS This Morning" co-host Norah O'Donnell said she was on a different flight at the airport at the time of the incident.
"I was about to take off when the pilot came on the intercom and said, 'Ladies and gentleman some terrible news, there has been an accident here at LaGuardia,'" O'Donnell told CBS New York.
O'Donnell and fellow passengers sat on the runway for about 30 minutes before deplaning. She then spoke to several passengers who were on the plane that skidded off the runway.
"We were very close to ending up in the water," passenger Tim Moore told O'Donnell.
The National Transportation Safety Board is sending an investigator to retrieve the plane's flight data and cockpit voice recorders and to document damage to the plane, said spokeswoman Kelly Nantel.
The Delta flight was landing on LaGuardia's main runway - a stretch of pavement that is 7,003 feet long and 150 feet wide. On the right side of the runway are a taxiway and the airport terminals. On the left is a berm, fence and Flushing Bay.
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CBSNCapt. Chesley Sullenberger weighs in on LaGuardia jet skidCapt. Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger joins CBSN on the phone to weigh in on the flight emergency at LaGuardia Airport, where a Delta jet slid off t...
In 2005, a safety buffer was added to the end of the runway at LaGuardia, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. It was updated just last year. Called an engineered material arresting system, the buffer is typically a crushable material that can extend 1,000 feet beyond the runway. It is designed to slow or stop a plane that overruns, undershoots or veers off the side of the runway.
The tires of the aircraft sink into the lightweight material and the aircraft is slows as it rolls through the material.
In the case of Flight 1086, it appears that the jet didn't end in the buffer zone but instead veered off the runway and into the berm separating the airport from Flushing Bay.
LaGuardia is one of the most congested airports in the U.S. It's also one of the more difficult ones to land at because of its close proximity to three other busy airports. When rain or snow reduces visibility, the number of landings slows down. The same occurs during high winds.
John M. Cox, who spent 25 years flying for US Airways and is now CEO of consultancy Safety Operating Systems, notes that LaGuardia's runway is "reasonably short" but still safe.
At airports with longer runways, pilots will glide a few feet above the runway and gently touchdown. At LaGuardia, "you put the airplane on the ground and stop it."
"You're concentrating on getting your plane on the runway and stopped," Cox says.
The airport has had its share of planes mishaps. In July 2013, the front landing gear of a Southwest Airlines flight arriving at the airport collapsed right after the plane touched down on the runway, sending the aircraft skidding before it came to a halt. Ten passengers had minor injuries.
(C) 2015 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
VIDEO-View Crew Slams Anti-Vacciners as 'Nuts'; No Mention of Ex-Anti-Vaccine Host | MRCTV
Sun, 22 Mar 2015 05:04
[See NewsBusters for more.] The co-hosts of The View on Friday slammed anti-vaccine conspiracy theorists as "nuts" and a danger to society. However, they avoided mentioning an awkward fact: Jenny McCarthy, an anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist, previously co-hosted the show. Whoopi Goldberg highlighted the story of a grandmother who wrote to an advice column about concerns over her conspiracy-minded adult children. Co-host Nicolle Wallace mocked, "I think the anti-vaccine people are nuts." She endorsed the grandmother's concerns. Goldberg pushed back against the anti-vaccine crowd: "I think things like vaccinations are much different than just about everything else because vaccinations and not vaccinating your child has consequences for everyone your kid is around."
VIDEO-The Difference between the United Kingdom, Great Britain and England Explained - YouTube
VIDEO-THE DATE - YouTube
VIDEO-Cybersecurity, Patriotism, Kaspersky and the Russians - Bloomberg Business
Sun, 22 Mar 2015 03:08
Cybersecurity, Patriotism, Kaspersky and the Russians - Bloomberg BusinessThis site uses cookies. By continuing to browse the site you are agreeing to our use of cookies.
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March 19, 2015
Bloomberg's Jordan Robertson reports on Kaspersky Lab's close ties to Russian spies. Robertson speaks on ''Bloomberg West.'' (Source: Bloomberg)
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VIDEO-Dr. Pepper The Doctor Of Choice For A 104-Year-Old Woman CBS Dallas / Fort Worth
Sun, 22 Mar 2015 01:26
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FORT WORTH (CBSDFW.COM) - A Fort Worth woman is celebrating her 104th year of life. ''Well at 103 I didn't think I'd make it, but I'm still perking along.''
At 104 years old, Elizabeth Sullivan says she doesn't need the advice of real doctors. So she keeps another doctor close by.
''People try to give me coffee for breakfast. Well, I'd rather have a Dr. Pepper.'' Sullivan fell in love with the soft drink's trademark ''23 flavors'' when she was in her 60's. ''I started drinking them about 40 years ago. Three a day. Every doctor that sees me says they'll kill you, but they die and I don't. So there must be a mistake somewhere.''
For her birthday she got a very big surprise. A beautiful cake shaped like what else, Dr. Pepper.
Commenting on her special day she said, ''When you live to be 104 and still can talk to nice people, you deserve some Dr. Pepper, but I never expected this.''
Kraft Recalling 242,000 Cases Of Macaroni & Cheese Dinners
She even got a gift basket straight from the CEO of Dr. Pepper Snapple Group, Larry Young.
Sullivan is well known in the Fort Worth community. She taught math at Paschal High School for 15 years. Tutored football players for free. Today she's thinking more about what and who she's thankful for.
''Man I'm feeling good. I'm glad I'm still here. I'm glad I'm not in a rest home. Glad I can read books and watch TV and have people come by and say hello.''
She was asked if she has a secret for living past 100. She said she really doesn't, other than, ''you just keep living''.
((C)2015 CBS Local Media, a division of CBS Radio Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
VIDEO-Napolitano Says 'We Don't Have To Listen To This Crap' As Half-Naked Students Protest Potential UC Tuition Hikes CBS San Francisco
Fri, 20 Mar 2015 00:02
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) '' University of California President Janet Napolitano remarked to a fellow regent that they ''didn't have to listen to this crap'' as underwear-clad protesters denounced potential tuition hikes during a meeting Wednesday in San Francisco.
UPDATE: Napolitano Apologizes For Calling Disruptive UC Students Protest 'Crap'
Napolitano was sitting next UC regent Chairman Bruce Varner as a group of about two dozen protesters shouted loudly, denouncing potential tuition hikes when she made the remark, which she may not have known was being recorded.
As the protests began, the cameras stayed on the regents. There was some confusion over what to do. That's when Napolitano leans over to Varner and said, ''Let's just break. Let's go, let's go. We don't have to listen to this crap.'' Her hot mic caught the comment.
ALSO READ: Catholic Leaders Apologize For Sprinkler System Built To Drench Homeless At Cathedral
Kristian Kim was one of the students protesting the 5% tuition increases every year for five years. ''It's an insult to have her as the president of UC,'' said Kim.
To make their point loud and clear, a group of the protesters, including Kim, pulled their clothes off down to their underwear during the demonstration, revealing the words ''Student Debt'' written on their bodies.
''I don't know where she's coming from, but I'm assuming she's never had to deal with these issues personally. So I can understand why there would be a disconnect there,'' Kim said after learning about the ''crap'' comment.''
Shortly after Napolitano's remark, the regents left the room and continued their meeting later.
The comment was a different tone from Napolitano at the very same meeting. ''They want to be sure that their voices are being heard and I want to commit to them that their voices are being heard,'' she said.
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Governor Jerry Brown and Napolitano said they were finding common ground during talks on the university system's budget. The pair are the only members of a committee charged with recommending changes in how the university system operates and spends its money.
Protesters suspect the meetings were scheduled during a busy week of midterms, but they say they won't stop protesting until their message is heard.
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