Biden motorcade involved in accident in Queens - Third time this Year! -

Biden motorcade involved in accident in Queens - Third time this Year! - 

Part of a motorcade escorting Vice President Joe Biden was involved in a minor accident Thursday while traveling in Queens, N.Y., WNBC-TV reported.

Two officers with the New York Police Department motorcycle unit sustained minor injuries during the incident and were undergoing treatment at a local hospital, according to the report.

Biden was not delayed by the accident, who met with New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg earlier Thursday.

It was the third motorcade incident in less than a year for the Vice President. In November 2009, a police car traveling in his motorcade struck another car in Manhattan.

That same month, a vehicle in Biden's motorcade traveling in Albuquerque, N.M., was involved in an accident, sending one sheriff's deputy to the hospital.
Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/biden_motorcade_involved_in_accident_PZgQFY9XkkgWjeQEN4xpiM#ixzz0vn63V6zX

U.S. Postal Service reported a $3.5 B loss in the quarter Thursday, as volume plummets and health care costs mount -

U.S. Postal Service reported a $3.5 B loss in the quarter Thursday, as volume plummets and health care costs mount -

The U.S. Postal Service reported a $3.5 billion loss in its most recent quarter Thursday, as mail volume plummets and retiree health care costs mount.

The USPS, a self-supporting government agency that receives no tax dollars, said operating revenue declined 1.8% to $16 billion during the fiscal 2010 third quarter compared to a year earlier, while operating expenses spiked 4.2% to $19.5 billion.

The U.S. Postal Service reported a $3.5 billion loss in its most recent quarter Thursday, as mail volume plummets and retiree health care costs mount.

The USPS, a self-supporting government agency that receives no tax dollars, said operating revenue declined 1.8% to $16 billion during the fiscal 2010 third quarter compared to a year earlier, while operating expenses spiked 4.2% to $19.5 billion.

The quarterly loss was the fourteenth in the last sixteen quarters, the postal service said.

"A significant portion of USPS losses in the past few years has been due to an unprecedented decline in mail volume -- down more than 20% since 2007," the USPS said in a statement. "The replacement of letter mail and business-transaction mail by electronic alternatives continues to cause downward pressure on mail volume."

During the third quarter alone, mail volume slipped 1.7% to 40.9 billion pieces. The USPS, which relies solely on the sale of postage-related products and services to generate revenue, has projected that total mail volume will fall more than 5% on an annual basis for the 2010 fiscal year, which ends September 30.

Making the problem worse is a federal law passed in 2006 that requires the Post Office to pay between $5.4 and $5.8 billion into its prepaid retiree health benefits each year. USPS chief financial officer Joseph Corbett said making the $5.5 billion payment that's due to the retiree fund Sept. 30 will threaten the agency's cash flow for the next fiscal year.

"Given current trends, we will not be able to pay all 2011 obligations," Corbett said. "Despite ongoing aggressive cost reductions totaling over $10 billion in the last three years, it is clear that a liquidity problem is looming and must be addressed through fundamental changes requiring legislation and changes to contracts."

Churchill ordered UFO cover-up - 'feared panic' over Second World War RAF incident between a UFO and a RAF bomber -

Churchill ordered UFO cover-up - 'feared panic' over Second World War RAF incident between a UFO and a RAF bomber - 





The government took the threat of UFOs so seriously in the 1950s that UK intelligence chiefs met to discuss the issue, newly-released files show.

Ministers even went on to commission weekly reports on UFO sightings from a committee of intelligence experts.

The papers also include a wartime account claiming prime minister Winston Churchill ordered a UFO sighting be kept secret to prevent "mass panic".

The files show reports of UFOs peaked in 1996 - when The X Files was popular.

The Joint Intelligence Committee is better known for providing briefings to the government on matters relating to security, defence and foreign affairs.

But the latest batch of UFO files released from the Ministry of Defence to the National Archives shows that, in 1957, the committee received reports detailing an average of one UFO sighting a week.

The files also include an account of a wartime meeting attended by Winston Churchill in which, it is claimed, the prime minister was so concerned about a reported encounter between a UFO and RAF bombers, that he ordered it be kept secret for at least 50 years to prevent "mass panic".

X Files

Nick Pope, who used to investigate UFO sightings for the MoD, said: "The interesting thing is that most of the UFO files from that period have been destroyed.

"But what happened is that a scientist whose grandfather was one of his [Churchill's] bodyguards, said look, Churchill and Eisenhower got together to cover up this phenomenal UFO sighting, that was witnessed by an RAF crew on their way back from a bombing raid.

"The reason apparently was because Churchill believed it would cause mass panic and it would shatter people's religious views."

Reports of sightings of UFOs peaked in 1996 in the UK - when science fiction drama The X Files was popular.

According to the files, there were more than 600 reports in 1996, compared with an average of 240 in the previous five years.

Continue reading the main story

“Start Quote

UFOs have become the third-most popular subject for people to write to the ministry of defence saying please could you release this file”

Dr David ClarkeNational Archives UFO consultant

The figures for 1996 show 609 reported sightings of unidentified flying objects, 343 letters from the public to the MoD's UFO desk and 22 enquiries and questions from MPs.

But by 2009, the MoD's UFO inquiry desk -Sec(AS)2 - had been closed down.

The 18 files released on Thursday are the latest to come out as part of a three-year project between the MoD and the National Archives.

Dr David Clarke, a UFO consultant to the National Archives, explained why the papers are being made public now.

Dr Clarke told the BBC: "Since the Freedom of Information Act arrived in 2005, this subject - UFOs - have become the third-most popular subject for people to write to the Ministry of Defence saying 'please could you release this file, or papers that you hold on this particular case'.

"What they've decided to do is to be totally open and to say, 'look we're not holding any secrets back about this subject we've got all these files and we're going to make them available to the public'."

One includes details on "aerial phenomena" prepared for a meeting of the Cabinet Office's Joint Intelligence Committee in April 1957.

According to a note included in the Red Book, the weekly intelligence survey, four incidents involving UFOs tracked by RAF radars were "unexplained".

'Spaceman'

The documents also include reports of a famous incident dubbed the "Welsh Roswell" in 1974, where members of the public reported seeing lights in the sky and feeling a tremor in the ground.

Other cases included in the files are:

• A near-miss with an "unidentified object" reported by the captain and first officer of a 737 plane approaching Manchester Airport in 1995.

• A mountain rescue team called to investigate a "crashed UFO" in the Berwyn Mountains in Wales in 1974.

• Attempted break-ins at RAF Rudloe Manor in Wiltshire - sometimes referred to as Britain's "Area 51" - the US's secretive desert military base.
• The Western Isles incident, when a loud explosion was reported in the sky over the Atlantic in the Outer Hebrides.
• The 14-minutes of "missing" film relating to the Blue Streak missile test launch in 1964, believed by some to show a "spaceman".
• A gambler from Leeds who held a 100-1 bet on alien life being discovered before the end of the 20th Century, and who approached the government for evidence to support his claim after the bookmakers refused to pay out. The MoD said it was open-minded about extra-terrestrial life but had no evidence of its existence.

The files come from more than 5,000 pages of UFO reports and letters and drawings from members of the public, as well as questions raised by MPs in Parliament.

Read more - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-10853905

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/ufo/7926037/UFO-files-Winston-Churchill-feared-panic-over-Second-World-War-RAF-incident.html

Alan Greenspan on Meet the Press : “The Financial System Is Broke” -

Alan Greenspan on Meet the Press : “The Financial System Is Broke” -

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

For the definitive confirmation that the Fed is and has always been very open to, at least philosophically, pushing the market higher no matter what the cost (if not in practice - they would never do that, oh no, Liberty 33 would never stoop so low), is this quote from former Fed chairman Alan Greenspan who was on Meet The Press earlier, where he said the following stunner: "if the stock market continues higher it will do more to stimulate the economy than any other measure we have discussed here." In other words, the Fed's dual mandate of maximizing employment and promoting a stable inflation rate have been brushed aside, and the one and only prerogative for Chairman Ben currently, and for the short and long-term future, is to keep the Dow Jones (because nobody in the administration, even the Fed, has heard about the S&P yet), above 10,000. Yet Greenspan, who now apparently is off the reservation concludes with this stunner: "There is no doubt that the federal funds rate can be fixed at what the Fed wants it to be but which the government has no control over is long-term interest rates and long-term interest rates are what make the economy move. And if this budget problem eventually merges to the point where it begins to become very toxic, it will be reflected in rising long-term interest rates, rising mortgage rates, lower housing. At the moment there is no sign of that because the financial system is broke and you can not have inflation if the financial system is not working." In other words, we will be in deflation until the broke financial system becomes unbroke... and then we will have hyperinflation.


Read more - http://www.zerohedge.com/article/alan-greenspan-financial-system-broke

Could working the night shift alter a woman's body clock enough to cause breast cancer?

Could working the night shift alter a woman's body clock enough to cause breast cancer?



Breast Cancer and Body Rhythms

Could working the night shift alter a woman's body clock enough to cause breast cancer?

"One minute you're a healthy person, the next minute you have breast cancer."
Ettamay (last name withheld) is up early these days. She lives a much different life than she did when she was a nurse working the night shifts. She would be just getting to sleep at this early morning hour.
"I was always exhausted," she says. "I don't know any of the nurses, especially the night shift gals, that weren't exhausted all the time."
She wonders if her crazy work schedule might have contributed to her breast cancer.
Virginia Tech molecular biologist Carla Finkielstein says studies back up Ettamay's suspicions. "There are a number of epidemiological studies that show women working night shifts have a higher incidence of breast cancer," she says.
Finkielstein is studying this question microscopically, one cell at a time. She wants to know the impact of night-shift work on a woman's physiology. Can working odd hours actually alter a woman’s body chemistry--turning healthy cells into cancer cells?
"What we're trying to understand is how changes in environmental conditions influence the expression of genes that regulate cell division," explains Finkielstein.
With support from the National Science Foundation (NSF), Finkielstein uses frog embryos to help figure out on a molecular basis the physiological changes in women who work the night shift. She says studies show that working "night owls" have abnormal levels of specific proteins in their cells, which act by turning on and off genes that regulate how cells grow and divide. Finkielstein injects some of the molecules into frog cells to study their effects.
".... And that could end up in cancer," she explains. "It could end up in very many other diseases. But in our studies we believe that it ends up in an abnormal proliferation of cells."
The Virginia Tech researcher also studies the role a woman's body clock plays in treating the disease. Using human cancer cells, many donated by women with breast cancer, Finkielstein tests whether radiation therapy is more effective when given at certain times of the day.
"So people who actually have the disease might one day receive treatments at times that make the medicine more effective and, therefore, reduce the impact of the disease and, most likely, the secondary effects on the person," she adds.
Recently, Finkielstein received additional NSF funding via the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA). She says the new funding has been critical to her continuing the research.
While she is hard at work, breast cancer survivors keep in touch and support her efforts. They, too, want to understand the connection between breast cancer and a woman's body clock to not only help prevent the onslaught of breast cancer but to better treat the disease.
"We are the face of breast cancer," says Vernal Branch, advocacy constituency coordinator for the Virginia Breast Cancer Foundation and a breast cancer survivor. She says cancer survivors are up against another clock.
"I don't know if there's any way that I can protect my grandchildren or my nieces from getting this disease, but that's what I'd like to do," she says. "I would like to see no woman die from breast cancer."
"I have two daughters, three granddaughters, I don't want them to get it," says Ettamay.
Finkielstein agrees. "So I hope that, in 10 years from now, you're not interviewing me about breast cancer, but we can talk about something else."


Read more - http://www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/science_nation/bodyrhythms.jsp?WT.mc_id=USNSF_51

Google Earth Used To Find Unlicensed Pools that don't have the proper permits

Google Earth Used To Find Unlicensed Pools that don't have the proper permits - 

A town on New York's Long Island is using Google Earth to find backyard pools that don't have the proper permits.

The town of Riverhead has used the satellite image service to find about 250 pools whose owners never filled out the required paperwork.

Violators were told to get the permits or face hefty fines. So far about $75,000 in fees has been collected.

Riverhead's chief building inspector Leroy Barnes Jr. said the unpermitted pools were a safety concern. He said that without the required inspections there was no way to know whether the pools' plumbing, electrical work and fencing met state and local regulations.

"Pool safety has always been my concern," Barnes said.

But some privacy advocates say the use of Google Earth to find scofflaw swimming pools reeks of Big Brother.

Lillie Coney, associate director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, D.C., said Google Earth was promoted as an aid to curious travelers but has become a tool for cash-hungry local governments.

"The technology is going so far ahead of what people think is possible, and there is too little discussion about community norms," she said.

A representative for Google said she did not know of any other community using Google Earth as it has been used in Riverhead. She did not respond to a question about whether Google has any concerns about how the town is using the service.

Read more - http://www.myfoxny.com/dpp/news/local_news/long_island/Google-Earth-Used-To-Find-Unlicensed-Pools-20100801-apx

Largest U.S. websites are installing consumer-tracking technologies on the computers of people visiting their sites -

Largest U.S. websites are installing consumer-tracking technologies on the computers of people visiting their sites -

The largest U.S. websites are installing new and intrusive consumer-tracking technologies on the computers of people visiting their sites—in some cases, more than 100 tracking tools at a time—a Wall Street Journal investigation has found.

The tracking files represent the leading edge of a lightly regulated, emerging industry of data-gatherers who are in effect establishing a new business model for the Internet: one based on intensive surveillance of people to sell data about, and predictions of, their interests and activities, in real time.

The Journal's study shows the extent to which Web users are in effect exchanging personal data for the broad access to information and services that is a defining feature of the Internet.

In an effort to quantify the reach and sophistication of the tracking industry, the Journal examined the 50 most popular websites in the U.S. to measure the quantity and capabilities of the "cookies," "beacons" and other trackers installed on a visitor's computer by each site. Together, the 50 sites account for roughly 40% of U.S. page-views.

The 50 sites installed a total of 3,180 tracking files on a test computer used to conduct the study. Only one site, the encyclopedia Wikipedia.org, installed none. Twelve sites, including IAC/InterActive Corp.'s Dictionary.com, Comcast Corp.'s Comcast.net and Microsoft Corp.'s MSN.com, installed more than 100 tracking tools apiece in the course of the Journal's test.

The Journal also surveyed its own site, WSJ.com, which doesn't rank among the top 50 by visitors. WSJ.com installed 60 tracking files, slightly below the 64 average for the top 50 sites.

Some two-thirds of the tracking tools installed—2,224—came from 131 companies that, for the most part, are in the business of following Internet users to create rich databases of consumer profiles that can be sold. The companies that placed the most such tools were Google Inc., Microsoft. and Quantcast Corp., all of which are in the business of targeting ads at people online.

Google, Microsoft and Quantcast all said they don't track individuals by name and offer Internet users a way to remove themselves from their tracking networks. Comcast, MSN and Dictionary.com said they disclose tracking practices in their privacy policies, and said their visitors aren't identified by name.

The state of the art is growing increasingly intrusive, the Journal found. Some tracking files can record a person's keystrokes online and then transmit the text to a data-gathering company that analyzes it for content, tone and clues to a person's social connections. Other tracking files can re-spawn trackers that a person may have deleted.

To measure the sensitivity of the data gathered by tracking companies, the Journal created an "exposure index" for the top 50 sites. Dictionary.com ranked highest in exposing users to potentially aggressive surveillance: It installed 168 tracking tools that didn't let users decline to be tracked, and 121 tools that, according to their privacy statements, don't rule out collecting financial or health data. Dictionary.com attributed the number of tools to its use of many different ad networks, each of which puts tools on its site.

Some of the tracking files identified by the Journal were so detailed that they verged on being anonymous in name only. They enabled data-gathering companies to build personal profiles that could include age, gender, race, zip code, income, marital status and health concerns, along with recent purchases and favorite TV shows and movies.

Read more - http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703977004575393173432219064.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLETopStories

Is Your Detergent Stalking You? - has a GPS device that allows it to track shoppers and follow them to their front doors -

Is Your Detergent Stalking You? - has a GPS device that allows it to track shoppers and follow them to their front doors - 





Unilever's Omo detergent is adding an unusual ingredient to its two-pound detergent box in Brazil: a GPS device that allows its promotions agency Bullet to track shoppers and follow them to their front doors.


Starting next week, consumers who buy one of the GPS-implanted detergent boxes will be surprised at home, given a pocket video camera as a prize and invited to bring their families to enjoy a day of Unilever-sponsored outdoor fun. The promotion, called Try Something New With Omo, is in keeping with the brand's international "Dirt is Good" positioning that encourages parents to let their kids have a good time even if they get dirty.

Omo accounts for half of Brazil's detergent sales and is already found in 80% of homes there, so Unilever's goal is more to draw attention to a new stain-fighting version of Omo and get it talked about rather than looking for a big increase in sales.

That made the idea of doing a promotion where the prize finds the consumer, rather than the consumer having to look for the prize -- and maybe not bothering -- appealing.

Fernando Figueiredo, Bullet's president, said the GPS device is activated when a shopper removes the detergent carton from the supermarket shelf. Fifty Omo boxes implanted with GPS devices have been scattered around Brazil, and Mr. Figueiredo has teams in 35 Brazilian cities ready to leap into action when a box is activated. The nearest team can reach the shopper's home "within hours or days," and if they're really close by, "they may get to your house as soon as you do," he said.

Once there, the teams have portable equipment that lets them go floor by floor in apartment buildings until they find the correct unit, he said.

Of course, Brazil has a high crime rate, and not everyone is going to open the door to strangers who claim to have been sent by her detergent brand to offer a free video camera. Bullet has thought of that. If the team tracks a consumer to her home but she won't let them in, they can remotely activate a buzzer in the detergent box so that it starts beeping. And if the team takes too long to arrive, and the consumer has already opened the box to see if she's a winner or just do laundry, she'll find, along with the GPS device and less detergent than expected, a note explaining the promotion and a phone number to call.

"Anything can happen," Mr. Figueiredo said. "We have to be innovative, but we don't know what reaction to expect from consumers."

In a big web component, the site experimentealgonovo.com.br (Portuguese for "try something new") goes live in August, and will include a map showing roughly where the winners live, pictures of each winner and footage of the Bullet-Omo teams hunting down the GPS-enabled detergent boxes, knocking on doors and surprising consumers.

"It costs more than a traditional promotion and is riskier because it's never been done before, but it's worth it," Mr. Figueiredo said. The technology aspect of the promotion costs less than $1 million, out of Omo's overall marketing budget of about $23 million.

"We believe in using new technology for promotional marketing," Mr. Figueiredo said.

Plus Bullet just likes figuring out how to ingeniously embed stuff in products. Two summers ago, sales of Unilever's Fruttare Popsicles soared when Bullet disguised 10,000 iPod Shuffles as popsicles and popped them in freezer cases. The agency's creatives had noticed while reading their iPod instruction manuals that an iPod can operate at temperatures below freezing. They immediately began freezing their own devices as a test, then constructed a fake ice-cream bar case that mimicked the popsicle but fit an iPod, and a wildly successful summer ice cream promotion was born.

Read more - http://adage.com/globalnews/article?article_id=145183

The head of China’s biggest credit rating agency has said America is Insolvent and that U.S. credit ratings are a Joke -

The head of China’s biggest credit rating agency has said America is Insolvent and that U.S. credit ratings are a Joke -

America's biggest creditor - China - has called our bluff.

As the Financial Times notes, the head of China's biggest credit rating agency has said America is insolvent and that U.S. credit ratings are a joke:

The head of China’s largest credit rating agency has slammed his western counterparts for causing the global financial crisis and said that as the world’s largest creditor nation China should have a bigger say in how governments and their debt are rated.

“The western rating agencies are politicised and highly ideological and they do not adhere to objective standards,” Guan Jianzhong, chairman of Dagong Global Credit Rating, told the Financial Times in an interview.

***

He specifically criticised the practice of “rating shopping” by companies who offer their business to the agency that provides the most favourable rating.

In the aftermath of the financial crisis “rating shopping” has been one of the key complaints from western regulators , who have heavily criticised the big three agencies for handing top ratings to mortgage-linked securities that turned toxic when the US housing market collapsed in 2007.

“The financial crisis was caused because rating agencies didn’t properly disclose risk and this brought the entire US financial system to the verge of collapse, causing huge damage to the US and its strategic interests,” Mr Guan said.

Recently, the rating agencies have been criticised for being too slow to downgrade some of the heavily indebted peripheral eurozone economies, most notably Spain, which still holds triple A ratings from Moody’s.

There is also a view among many investors that the agencies would shy away from withdrawing triple A ratings to countries such as the US and UK because of the political pressure that would bear down on them in the event of such actions.

Last week, privately-owned Dagong published its own sovereign credit ranking in what it said was a first for a non-western credit rating agency.

The results were very different from those published by Moody’s, Standard & Poor’s and Fitch, with China ranking higher than the United States, Britain, Japan, France and most other major economies, reflecting Dagong’s belief that China is more politically and economically stable than all of these countries.

Mr Guan said his company’s methodology has been developed over the last five years and reflects a more objective assessment of a government’s fiscal position, ability to govern, economic power, foreign reserves, debt burden and ability to create future wealth.

“The US is insolvent and faces bankruptcy as a pure debtor nation but the rating agencies still give it high rankings ,” Mr Guan said.

***

A wildly enthusiastic editorial published by Xinhua , China’s official state newswire, lauded Dagong’s report as a significant step toward breaking the monopoly of western rating agencies of which it said China has long been a “victim”.

“Compared with the US’ conquest of the world by means of force, Moody’s has controlled the world through its dominance in credit ratings,” the editorial said...

China is right. U.S. credit ratings have been less than worthless. And - in the real world - America should have been downgraded to junk. See this, this, this, this, this,this, this, this and this.

China is not shy about reminding the U.S. who's got the biggest pockets. As the Financial Times quotes Mr. Guan:

“China is the biggest creditor nation in the world and with the rise and national rejuvenation of China we should have our say in how the credit risks of states are judged.”

Read more -  http://www.georgewashington2.blogspot.com/2010/07/china-calls-our-bluff-us-is-insolvent.html

China’s ‘Twitters’ targeted by internet police - to step up monitoring and purge sites of politically “sensitive” words -

China’s ‘Twitters’ targeted by internet police - to step up monitoring and purge sites of politically “sensitive” words -

Chinese micro-blogging sites have become the latest target of Beijing’s internet police, which have ordered companies providing Twitter-like services to step up monitoring and purge sites of politically “sensitive” words and expressions.

In the last week, most of the largest and most popular micro-blogging websites in China have been shut down for “maintenance” or have switched to “beta” or “testing” versions.

These backup websites are being used while the companies “strengthen their self-censorship systems” and remove all politically sensitive content under orders from Chinese internet authorities, according to employees at some of those companies.

The micro-blogging site run by the popular Chinese portal Netease was unavailable on Wednesday , replaced with a notice saying the site had been “under maintenance” since 7pm on Tuesday.

The Twitter-like service provided by leading internet portal Sohu was also closedfor “maintenance” over the entire weekend but reopened on Monday morning.

Other companies that have switched to “beta” or “testing” versions of their micro-blogging sites include Sina, which claims to have 20m registered micro-bloggers, as well as Tencent, QQ and even the micro-blog site of the People’s Daily website, the official mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party.

Popular US micro-blog and social networking sites including Twitter, Facebook and Youtube have all been banned in China since last year but domestic imitators have been allowed to flourish, provided they observe the government’s stringent self-censorship requirements.

Read more - http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/25cb6340-8f1e-11df-a4de-00144feab49a.html