Magnitude 4.3 Quake Wakes Up Chicago Area -

Reading - Magnitude 4.3 Quake Wakes Up Chicago Area -

A rare moderate earthquake struck northern Illinois Wednesday morning, waking up residents in the Chicago area.

The 4.3 magnitude quake, centered 48 miles west of Chicago near the city of Sycamore, hit at 4 a.m. local time at a depth of about 3 miles, the USGS reported.

Geophysicist Amy Vaughn told the Chicago Sun Times the earthquake was "very widely felt" and the USGS phone lines were flooded with calls from residents asking about the shaking.

"It's mostly people who said 'we woke up and we thought we were going crazy,'" Vaughn said. "Mostly it’s rattling people awake."

Kane County sheriff's spokesman Lt. Pat Gengler told the Associated Press dispatchers have been flooded with calls from startled residents, though no injuries or damage have been reported.

Gengler said several residential and business alarms were triggered, but deputies haven't been called for assistance.

Residents reported being shaken out of bed and finding books and tools scattered across the floor after falling from shelves.

Walter Mockus of St. Charles told the Chicago Tribune. "The whole house shook. The chimes that hang were all ringing. It was so loud, I thought a plane had gone down."

On Twitter, user RosaMCabrera wrote: "Earthquake woke us! In ravenswood it was a second or so."

And Terryamerson said: "Thought it was the biggest snow plow ever that woke me up this morning. No it was 4.3 earthquake!"

Early reports suggest the quake was felt across three states: Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin.

Read more -http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,585337,00.html

Congress votes to spend $50 million of the taxpayers’ money to buy 3,000 acres of beachfront on Caribbean Island -

Reading - Congress votes to spend $50 million of the taxpayers’ money to buy 3,000 acres of beachfront on Caribbean Island -

If you are hoping to visit the newest crown jewel in America's park system chosen by Congress, throw away the car keys and open up your wallet. The 2,900 pristine acres of beachfront property were not cheap -- or even in the United States.

The property soliciting accusations of "pork" from critics is the Castle Nugent National Historic Park. It's in the U.S. Virgin Islands, about a thousand miles from Miami and an expensive jet ride to get there.

Two weeks ago, on a near party line vote, a huge Democratic majority in the House agreed to spend $50 million to buy the former cotton plantation on the island of St. Croix.

"This is a beautiful and important natural and cultural resource that is in danger of being lost forever," Virgin Island delegate, Donna Christiansen, told House colleagues in January.

"The site to be designated as the Castle Nugent National Historic Park continues to be heralded as one of the last pristine areas in the region."

The mixture of dry forest and rangeland offers picturesque views of the Caribbean Sea, but good luck getting there. Critics in Congress say the purchase is wasteful and irresponsible, especially with unemployment at 10 percent and the nation in debt.

"Now is not the time to spend up to $50 million dollars of the taxpayers’ money to buy nearly 3,000 acres of beachfront property on a Caribbean Island," said Rep. Doc Hastings, (R-Wash.), ranking Republican on the House Natural Resources Committee. "We can't afford a price tag for a new park in St Croix, just as many Americans will never be able to afford a visit there."

Democrats approved the purchase, even though the National Park Service has yet to complete a study on the purchase.

"We don't have the money to do this," said Rep Jason Chaffetz, (R - Utah). "Currently the National Park Service has an estimated $9 billion in backlog maintenance on existing parks. Why should the people of Iowa, Rhode Island or California or Utah have to continue to pay and supplement the people there on St Croix for this property?"

But a majority on St. Croix, where the economy depends on tourism, support the purchase.

"It allows us to maintain the natural beauty of St. Croix and also at the same time it allows for the historic nature of the property," Virgin Islands Governor, John de Jongh Jr., told Fox News.

The land is currently used as a cattle ranch. It includes an estate house and two row houses where the owners kept slaves that worked on the plantation. Most of the land is owned by the Gasperi family, who bought the land in the 1950's and approached the U.S. Government about four years ago about buying it.

"It's beautiful, it's lush, it's green," Mauro Gasperi said. "It contains a beautiful reef in front that we want to maintain as clean and as pristine as when we first bought it."

The Gasperi family maintains it wants to sell the land to the U.S. government in order to protect it from developers. Critics in Congress say there is nothing stopping them from doing that. They don't have to sell, or the family could impose a conservation easement on the land, preventing development forever.

"Sometimes you have to say, enough is enough," Rep. Rob Bishop of Utah told the House in January. "We heard it is (the Gasperi's) desire that this land not be developed, but preserved in its current condition. It seems to me they are in the perfect position to accomplish that goal as landowners."

The Senate is now expected to take up a similar bill.

Here's the final passage roll call vote on H.R. 3726: ^[1]

Naked Body Scanner Images Of Film Star Printed, Circulated By Airport Staff -

Reading - Naked Body Scanner Images Of Film Star Printed, Circulated By Airport Staff -

Claims on behalf of authorities that naked body scanner images are immediately destroyed after passengers pass through new x-ray backscatter devices have been proven fraudulent after it was revealed that naked images of Indian film star Shahrukh Khan were printed out and circulated by airport staff at Heathrow in London.

UK Transport Secretary Lord Adonis said last week that the images produced by the scanners were deleted “immediately” and airport staff carrying out the procedure are fully trained and supervised.

“It is very important to stress that the images which are captured by body scanners are immediately deleted after the passenger has gone through the body scanner,” Adonis told the London Evening Standard.

Adonis was forced to address privacy concerns following reports that the images produced by thescanners broke child pornography laws in the UK. When the scanners were first introduced, it was also speculated that images of famous people would be ripe for abuse as the pictures produced by the devices make genitals “eerily visible” according to journalists who have investigated trials of the technology.

However, the Transport Secretary’s assurances were demolished after it was revealed on the BBC’s Jonathan Ross show Friday that Indian actor Shahrukh Khan had passed through a body scan and later had the image of his naked body printed out and circulated by Heathrow security staff.

“I was in London recently going through the airport and these new machines have come up, the body scans. You’ve got to see them. It makes you embarrassed – if you’re not well endowed,” said Khan, referring to how the scans produce clear images of a person’s genitals.

“You walk into the machine and everything – the whole outline of your body – comes out,” he said.

“I was a little scared. Something happens [inside the scans], and I came out. Then I saw these girls – they had these printouts. I looked at them. I thought they were some forms you had to fill. I said ‘give them to me’ – and you could see everything inside. So I autographed them for them,” stated Khan.

The story was carried by Yahoo News under the headline “Shah Rukh signs off sexy body-scan printouts at Heathrow”.

Khan’s reference to “girls” with printouts of his naked body scan can only refer to female airport security staff responsible for processing the images produced by the scanners, “professionals” who are supposed to instantly delete the images, according to Lord Adonis.

The revelation that airport security staff are completely abusing any notion of the professionalism promised by authorities by printing out and circulating images of naked body scans should set alarm bells ringing, especially in light of the fact that such images of minors break child pornography laws. British authorities have made it mandatory for travelers to submit to the naked body scanners when asked and have overturned previous rules that prevented under 18’s from passing through the devices.

Within days of the devices being introduced at Heathrow, staff have abused their professionalism and printed out naked scans of a famous actor for their own titillation.

We were promised all along that the body scanners “increased privacy” because they were only accessible to a single staff member who had no personal contact with the passenger taking the scan, in addition to the assurance that the images could not be saved and were instantly deleted. It in fact turns out that airport staff have been saving, printing and circulating naked body scans in complete violation of these supposed guarantees.

Furthermore, we were told that the identity of the person undergoing the virtual strip search would also be kept private. The fact that Heathrow employees must have known that the actor was about to take the body scan in order to print out copies of the image also proves this claim to be a total fallacy.

The abuse of the naked body scan images in this instance is a total violation of every data protection law in the UK. Far from treating the story in a comical manner, Khan should be filing a very expensive lawsuit and preparing for a successful and lucrative outcome.

In the meantime, the revelation that the naked body scanner images are being freely printed out and circulated by airport security staff should prove to be the death knell for plans on behalf of governments worldwide to institute the scanners on a widespread basis.

Courts have consistently found that strip searches are only legal when performed on a person who has already been found guilty of a crime or on arrestees pending trial where a reasonable suspicion has to exist that they are carrying a weapon. Subjecting masses of people to blanket strip searches in airports reverses the very notion of innocent until proven guilty.

Barring people from flying and essentially treating them like terrorists for refusing to be humiliated by the virtual strip search is a clear breach of the basic human right of freedom of movement.Security experts agree that such scanners would not even have stopped the incident that has been exploited to justify their widespread introduction – the Christmas Day underwear bomber.

Not only have the scanners proven to be a total violation of privacy, but major international radiation safety groups are now warning of the health risks they pose.

Despite governments claiming that backscatter x-ray systems produce radiation too low to pose a threat, the Inter-Agency Committee on Radiation Safety concluded in their report that governments must justify the use of the scanners and that a more accurate assessment of the health risks is needed.

Pregnant women and children should not be subject to scanning, according to the report, adding that governments should consider “other techniques to achieve the same end without the use of ionizing radiation.”

“The Committee cited the IAEA’s 1996 Basic Safety Standards agreement, drafted over three decades, that protects people from radiation. Frequent exposure to low doses of radiation can lead to cancer and birth defects, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency,”reported Bloomberg.

Read more -http://www.prisonplanet.com/exposed-naked-body-scanner-images-of-film-star-printed-circulated.html

Chinese military proposed that their country boost defense spending, and sell U.S. bonds to punish Washington -

Reading - Chinese military proposed that their country boost defense spending, and sell U.S. bonds to punish Washington -

Senior Chinese military officers have proposed that their country boost defense spending, adjust PLA deployments, and possibly sell some U.S. bonds to punish Washington for its latest round of arms sales to Taiwan.

WORLD

The calls for broad retaliation over the planned U.S. weapons sales to the disputed island came from officers at China's National Defence University and Academy of Military Sciences, interviewed by Outlook Weekly, a Chinese-language magazine published by the official Xinhua news agency.

The interviews with Major Generals Zhu Chenghu and Luo Yuan and Senior Colonel Ke Chunqiao appeared in the issue published on Monday.

The People's Liberation Army (PLA) plays no role in setting policy for China's foreign exchange holdings. Officials in charge of that area have given no sign of any moves to sell U.S. Treasury bonds over the weapons sales, a move that could alarm markets and damage the value of China's own holdings.

While far from representing fixed government policy, the open demands for retaliation by the PLA officers underscored the domestic pressures on Beijing to deliver on its threats to punish the Obama administration over the arms sales.

"Our retaliation should not be restricted to merely military matters, and we should adopt a strategic package of counter-punches covering politics, military affairs, diplomacy and economics to treat both the symptoms and root cause of this disease," said Luo Yuan, a researcher at the Academy of Military Sciences.

"Just like two people rowing a boat, if the United States first throws the strokes into chaos, then so must we."

Luo said Beijing could "attack by oblique means and stealthy feints" to make its point in Washington.

"For example, we could sanction them using economic means, such as dumping some U.S. government bonds," Luo said.

The warnings from the PLA come after weeks of strains between Washington and Beijing, who have also been at odds over Internet controls and hacking, trade and currency quarrels, and President Barack Obama's planned meeting with the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan leader reviled by China as a "separatist."

MILITARY SPENDING BOOST

Chinese has blasted the United States over the planned $6.4 billion arms package for Taiwan unveiled in late January, saying it will sanction U.S. firms that sell weapons to the self-ruled island that Beijing considers a breakaway province of China.

China is likely to unveil its official military budget for 2010 next month, when the Communist Party-controlled national parliament meets for its annual session.

The PLA officers suggested that budget should mirror China's ire toward Washington.

"Clearly propose that due to the threat in the Taiwan Sea, we are increasing military spending," said Luo.

Last year, the government set the official military budget at 480.7 billion yuan ($70.4 billion), a 14.9 percent rise on the one in 2008, continuing a nearly unbroken succession of double-digit increases over more than two decades.

The fresh U.S. arms sales threatened Chinese military installations on the mainland coast facing Taiwan, and "this gives us no choice but to increase defense spending and adjust (military) deployments," said Zhu Chenghu, a major general at China's National Defence University in Beijing.

In 2005, Zhu stirred controversy by suggesting China could use nuclear weapons if the United States intervened militarily in a conflict over Taiwan.

The United States switched official recognition from Taiwan to China in 1979. But the Taiwan Relations Act, passed the same year, guarantees Taiwan a continued supply of defensive weapons.

China has the world's biggest pile of foreign currency reserves, much of it held in U.S. treasury debt. China held $798.9 billion in U.S. Treasuries at end-October.

But any attempt to use that stake against Washington would probably maul the value of China's own dollar-denominated assets.

China has condemned previous arms sales, but has taken little action in response to them. But Luo said the country's growing strength meant that time has passed.

"China's attitude and actions over U.S. weapons sales to Taiwan will be increasingly tough," the magazine cited him as saying. "That is inevitable with rising national strength."

Read more -http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6183KG20100209

Police Pursuit and Shootout -

Watching - Police Pursuit and Shootout -

Green Police: Audi Super Bowl Ad -

Watching - Green Police: Audi Super Bowl Ad -

Snicker's ad from Super Bowl - Betty White gets tackeled -

Watching - Snicker's ad from Super Bowl - Betty White gets tackeled -

Is There Shit in Your Salad? 39% of Bagged Salads Have Too Much Fecal Bacteria -

Reading - Is There Shit in Your Salad? 39% of Bagged Salads Have Too Much Fecal Bacteria -

You might think that "pre washed" and "triple-washed" salad greens sold in plastic clamshells or bags are squeaky clean. But our recent tests found room for improvement.

No, we didn't find pathogens such as
E. coli O157:H7, listeria, or salmonella. With our small sample size—208 containers representing 16 brands purchased at stores in Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York—we didn't expect to. (The Department of Agriculture, in a test of more than 4,000 samples of loose and packaged salad in 2008, found salmonella in two of them. All of our tests included packaged greens.)

But in our samples, all of which were within their use-by date, we did find bacteria that are common indicators of poor sanitation and fecal contamination—in some cases, at rather high levels.

We tested for total coliforms and for other bacteria, including enterococcus, that are better indicators of fecal contamination. Federal action limits exist for indicator organisms in water, raw meat, milk, and some processed foods, but not produce. Those organisms are typically used to gauge possible pathogen contamination.

Several industry experts we consulted suggested that for leafy greens, an unacceptable level of total coliforms or enterococcus is 10,000 or more colony forming units per gram (CFU/g) or a comparable estimate. In our tests, 39 percent of samples exceeded that level for total coliforms and 23 percent for enterococcus.

Results varied widely among samples, even within the same brand, from undetectable levels of those bacteria to more than 1 million CFU/g. Packages with higher bacteria levels had similarities. Many contained spinach and were one to five days from their use-by date. Packages six to eight days from their use-by date fared better. Whether the greens came in a clamshell or bag, included "baby" greens, or were organic made no difference.

Brands for which we had more than four samples, including national brands Dole, Earthbound Farm Organic, and Fresh Express, plus regional and store brands, had at least one package with relatively high levels of total coliforms or enterococcus. Our tests were conducted at an outside lab over two weeks in August and September with financial support from the Pew Health Group, which is working to improve food safety.

Consumers Union supports Senate Bill 510, the Food Safety Modernization Act, that would, among other things, require the Food and Drug Administration to set stronger produce safety standards. Those should include performance standards for indicators of fecal contamination, such as generic E. coli and enterococcus.

What you can do

• Buy packages as far from their use-by date as you can find.
• Even if the bag says "prewashed" or "triple-washed," wash the greens yourself. Rinsing won't remove all bacteria but may remove residual soil.
• Prevent cross contamination by keeping greens away from raw meat. For more information, go to www.ConsumersUnion.org/safefood.

South Carolina now requires ’subversives’ to register - $5 fee for persons planning to overthrow US government -

Reading - South Carolina now requires ’subversives’ to register - $5 fee for persons planning to overthrow US government -




Five-dollar registration fee for persons planning to overthrow US government

Terrorists who want to overthrow the United States government must now register with South Carolina's Secretary of State and declare their intentions -- or face a $25,000 fine and up to 10 years in prison.

The state's "Subversive Activities Registration Act," passed last year and now officially on the books, states that "every member of a subversive organization, or an organization subject to foreign control, every foreign agent and every person who advocates, teaches, advises or practices the duty, necessity or propriety of controlling, conducting, seizing or overthrowing the government of the United States ... shall register with the Secretary of State."

There's even a $5 filing fee.

By "subversive organization," the law means "every corporation, society, association, camp, group, bund, political party, assembly, body or organization, composed of two or more persons, which directly or indirectly advocates, advises, teaches or practices the duty, necessity or propriety of controlling, conducting, seizing or overthrowing the government of the United States [or] of this State."

Story continues below...

A PDF of the registration form can be found here, courtesy of FitsNews.

The law also gives subversive organizations "subject to foreign control" 30 days to register with the state after setting up shop in South Carolina.

While the intention of the law is apparently aimed at Islamic terrorists, it's unclear in the law's wording whether it can be applied to right-wing militias, some of whom have reputedly called for the overthrow of the US government. The law states that "fraternal" and "patriotic" groups are exempt from the law, but only if they don't "contemplate the overthrow of the government."

While the law is clearly redundant -- there are plenty of statutes at the state and federal level through which terrorists can be prosecuted -- it reflects a not-uncommon pattern in some states of "doubling down" against particular crimes.

For instance, South Carolina is among those states which require drug dealers to declare their illegal income, or face additional criminal penalties on top of the already established penalties for buying, possessing and selling drugs.

The South Carolina blog FitsNews describes the new law as "bureaucracy for terrorists."

"In the long and storied history of utterly retarded legislation in South Carolina, we may have finally found the legal statute that takes the cake for sheer stupidity, which we think you’ll agree is saying something," the unsigned blog posting scathingly commented.

Read more - http://rawstory.com/2010/02/south-carolinas-subversive-activities-registration-act-force/

Space Shuttle Endeavour STS-130 Launch (Full Video) - Last Nightime Launch -

Watching - Space Shuttle Endeavour STS-130 Launch (Full Video) - Last Nightime Launch -