Category: News

Rolling Stone – by Jon Dolan

Lou Reed, a massively influential songwriter and guitarist who helped shape nearly fifty years of rock music, died today. The cause of his death has not yet been released, but Reed underwent a liver transplant in May.

Look back at Lou Reed’s remarkable career in photos

With the Velvet Underground in the late Sixties, Reed fused street-level urgency with elements of European avant-garde music, marrying beauty and noise, while bringing a whole new lyrical honesty to rock & roll poetry. As a restlessly inventive solo artist, from the Seventies into the 2010s, he was chameleonic, thorny and unpredictable, challenging his fans at every turn. Glam, punk and alternative rock are all unthinkable without his revelatory example. “One chord is fine,” he once said, alluding to his bare-bones guitar style. “Two chords are pushing it. Three chords and you’re into jazz.”   Continue reading “Lou Reed, Velvet Underground Leader and Rock Pioneer, Dead at 71”

The Daily Caller – by Robby Soave

If you give U.S. tax dollars to a Mexican male prostitute, will he agree to stay disease-free? That’s what government-funded researchers at Brown University would like to know.

The study is called “Conditional Economic Incentives to Reduce HIV Risks: A Pilot in Mexico,” and uses a grant from the National Institute of Health to pay male prostitutes in Mexico City. The prostitutes were placed in different groups and tested for sexually transmitted diseases. For every six months that they remain clean, they receive a payment that is larger or smaller depending upon their group.   Continue reading “US government-funded study involves paying Mexican prostitutes”

AmmoLand

WASHINGTON –-(Ammoland.com)-Senate legislation introduced today that would increase hunting and angling access on public lands and bolster the nation’s outdoor recreation economy was welcomed by a broad coalition of influential sportsmen’s groups and outdoor interests.

The Hunt Unrestricted on National Treasures Act, or “HUNT Act,” introduced this afternoon by Sen. Martin Heinrich of New Mexico, directs federal agencies to inventory all public lands greater than 640 acres where hunting and fishing are legal but inaccessible with the goal of expanding access for members of the public. The legislation finances land acquisitions from willing sellers through a small percentage of Land and Water Conservation Fund monies. Heinrich introduced similar legislation in 2012, when he was a member of the House of Representatives.   Continue reading “New Bill Promoting Public Lands Access for Hunting, Angling Draws Praise from Outdoors Community”

Forbes – by J. Justin Wilson

You can tell him he doesn’t have the authority to levy soda taxes under New York State law. You can strike down his ridiculous ban on restaurant sodas. But you cannot run from the soon-to-be-ex-Mayor of New York City, Michael R. Bloomberg, and his imperial war on soft drinks and just about anything else we enjoy eating.

Under normal circumstances, if all else fails people can escape the invasive arm of the nanny state by moving. It is called “voting with your feet.” Unfortunately for consumers, Bloomberg is worth billions, and he is hellbent on going to the ends of the earth through his “charitable” arm, Bloomberg Philanthropies, to tax and ban sodas into submission in the name of fighting obesity.   Continue reading “You Can’t Run From Mayor Bloomberg, And Things He Doesn’t Like”

Forbes – by Bruce Japsen

While politicians and pundits alike inside the beltway beat up the White House over computer system glitches, health insurance companies still project robust revenue growth and profits from a boom in business from newly insured Americans under the Affordable Care Act.

Take this week’s third-quarter earnings report and financial projections of Wellpoint (WLP), one of the nation’s largest health insurers, which earlier this week raised its earnings guidance for thethird time this year.  Amid a flurry of stories about the troubled launch of the federal health insurance marketplace web site known as healthcare.gov, Wellpoint said its improved outlook is due in part to gains from the Affordable Care Act. On Friday, the Obama administration named a contractor to fix the site, saying it should be fixed by the end of November.   Continue reading “Despite Glitches, Obamacare Profit Windfall To Insurers Well Underway”

ABC News – by CHET BROKAW Associated Press

Joe Carley has nearly finished burying the cattle he lost in a freak early fall blizzard that killed tens of thousands of cattle in western South Dakota. Now, he’s figuring out how to dig himself out of the financial hole left after about a quarter of his cows and maybe a third of his calves died in the storm.

“There’s some sleepless nights. There’s a lot of worry. My brain’s always rolling. We’re pulling ourselves out of it, you know. We’re trying to figure things out and step forward,” Carley, 40, of Philip, said during a break from herding cattle at the local livestock sale barn, where he works to help make ends meet.   Continue reading “S. Dakota Ranchers Vow to Survive Cattle Disaster”

Atlantic Cities – by Sarah Goodyear

After nearly five years of planning, a large-scale attempt to turn a big chunk of Detroit into an urban forest is now underway. The purchase of more than 1,500 vacant city-owned lots on the city’s lower east side – a total of more than 140 acres – got final approval from Detroit Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr and Michigan Governor Rick Snyder last week.

The buyer is Hantz Farms, and it’s a venture of financier John Hantz, who lives in the nearby Indian Village neighborhood. Indian Village is an affluent enclave of manor-scale historic homes, but much of the surrounding area is blighted. Hantz Farms will pay more than $500,000 for the land, which consists of non-contiguous parcels in an area where occupied homes are increasingly surrounding by abandoned properties.   Continue reading “A 140-Acre Forest Is About to Materialize in the Middle of Detroit”

The Daily Caller – by Michael Bastasch

Australia’s newly elected prime minister pulled no punches when giving his thoughts on the country’s carbon tax, which he says must be abolished as quickly as possible.

“The carbon tax is bad for the economy and it doesn’t do any good for the environment,” Abbott told The Washington Post. “Despite a carbon tax of $37 a ton by 2020, Australia’s domestic emissions were going up, not down. The carbon tax was basically socialism masquerading as environmentalism, and that’s why it’s going to get abolished.”   Continue reading “Aussie PM: carbon tax is ‘socialism’”

The New American – by Joe Wolverton, II, J.D

The Fourth Amendment protects the “right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

Based on reports of the number of domestic phone calls being recorded by the National Security Agency, the Obama administration must have probable cause to suspect millions of us of threatening national security.   Continue reading “Document Reveals NSA Monitored 125 Billion Phone Calls in One Month”

MSN News – by Darlene Superville 

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is stressing that information submitted while signing up for coverage under a major new health care law will not be used to enforce immigration law.

That’s always been the practice, but some immigrants fear that personal details could be used against them. That led the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency to clarify. In a memo released late Friday, the agency said it does not use information provided during the health coverage enrollment process to pursue civil immigration enforcement.   Continue reading “Health info won’t be used to enforce immigration law”

Drone Wars – by Chris Cole

Four important reports relating to the use of armed drones have been published over the past ten day.  Two official reports by UN Special Rapporteurs examine the legal issues surrounding the use of armed drones.  These were closely followed by a detailed report from Amnesty International on the impact of drones in Pakistan and a related report by Human Rights Watch on the impact of drones in Yemen.  All four are important and worth reading in detail.   Continue reading “UN pushes hard for more transparency on drones”

The Japan Times – by KYODO

The U.S. National Security Agency sought the Japanese government’s cooperation in 2011 over wiretapping fiber-optic cables carrying phone and Internet data across the Asia-Pacific region, but the request was rejected, sources said Saturday.

The agency’s overture was apparently aimed at gathering information on China given that Japan is at the heart of optical cables that connect various parts of the region. But Tokyo turned down the proposal, citing legal restrictions and a shortage of personnel, the sources said.   Continue reading “NSA asked Japan to tap regionwide fiber-optic cables in 2011”

Video Rebel’s Blog

The Banker Occupied Government in Washington has been imposing poverty on Americans by transferring wealth from the workers, farmers and small businessmen to the elite in New York and the City of London for more than 100 years. I have spoken many times of how the bankers steal our money. They create our money out of nothing and charge us interest for using their money. They also are allowed to steal billions of dollars every week from federal spending which we peasants are not allowed to audit. Donald Rumsfeld announced on 9-10-2001 that he could not trace 2.3 trillion dollars in Defense Department spending. This has become one of the top ten non-stories of the past 12 years because we have a Jewish press.   Continue reading “So Just How Much More Israeli Imposed Poverty Can Americans Take?”

Chron – by PAUL J. WEBER

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — State troopers arrested two men said to be carrying antique pistols outside the Texas Capitol on Saturday during a demonstration by a gun-rights group that also helped spearhead a rally of openly armed supporters last week at the Alamo.

The two men were arrested for criminal trespass and have refused to identify themselves to authorities, Department of Public Safety spokesman Tom Vinger said.   Continue reading “2 arrested at Texas Capitol gun-rights rally”

American-Statesman – by Andra Lim

dot Tech – by Vamien McKalin

From time to time, we tend to release flatulence in public (aka fart), which can be embarrassing if people realize you’re the one who released the stink bomb. These bombs have many names such as the silent but deadly, and loud but calm. Anyway, what if you could free up your flatulence in public without the smell causing mass hysteria? That’s where Shreddies comes into play, a new type of underwear that has the power to neutralize odor released from your buttocks.   Continue reading “Meet Shreddies, the underwear that neutralizes your farts”

Voice of Russia

Fast Company – by Neal Ungerleider

Well, the Fort Lauderdale Police Department isn’t using an oracle yet, but it is getting one step closer to Minority Report-style crime predicting. The department has become the latest agency to use big data analytics and data mining to prevent crime by staying one step ahead of criminals. According to IBM, the company has entered into a partnership with the Fort Lauderdale PD to integrate new data and analytics tools into everyday crime fighting. The new projects will use pattern recognition and anomaly detection tech on existing records like 911 calls, crime records, and building permit activity.   Continue reading “Some Florida Police are using Data to Predict Crime”