CBO: Longest Period of High Unemployment Since Great Depression
February 17th, 2012Via: U.S. News:
After three years with unemployment topping 8 percent, the U.S. has seen the longest period of high unemployment since the Great Depression, the Congressional Budget Office noted in a report issued today.
And, despite some recent good news on the economic front, the CBO is still predicting that unemployment will remain above 8 percent until 2014. The report also notes that, including those who haven’t sought work in the past four weeks and those who are working part-time but seeking full-time employment, the unemployment rate would be 15 percent.
Lawmaker Demands DHS Cease Monitoring of Blogs, Social Media
February 17th, 2012This social media monitoring program is an absurd limited hangout. Where’s the outrage over things like MAIN CORE and Room 641A?
Via: Wired:
Rep. Jackie Speier (D-California) said Thursday she wants the Department of Homeland Security to cease its social-media and news-monitoring operation.
Speaking at a Homeland Security subcommittee hearing, the California lawmaker said she was “outraged†that the agency has hired a contractor to review a variety of social networking sites, including Facebook and Twitter, and that General Dynamics is being tasked with reviewing news sources, blogs and their bylines for all types of articles, including those containing anti-American sentiment and reaction to policy proposals.
“This should not be a political operation,†she said.
‘As soon as we get them buying diapers from us, they’re going to start buying everything else too.’
February 17th, 2012Via: New York Times:
Andrew Pole had just started working as a statistician for Target in 2002, when two colleagues from the marketing department stopped by his desk to ask an odd question: “If we wanted to figure out if a customer is pregnant, even if she didn’t want us to know, can you do that? â€
…
There are, however, some brief periods in a person’s life when old routines fall apart and buying habits are suddenly in flux. One of those moments — the moment, really — is right around the birth of a child, when parents are exhausted and overwhelmed and their shopping patterns and brand loyalties are up for grabs. But as Target’s marketers explained to Pole, timing is everything. Because birth records are usually public, the moment a couple have a new baby, they are almost instantaneously barraged with offers and incentives and advertisements from all sorts of companies. Which means that the key is to reach them earlier, before any other retailers know a baby is on the way. Specifically, the marketers said they wanted to send specially designed ads to women in their second trimester, which is when most expectant mothers begin buying all sorts of new things, like prenatal vitamins and maternity clothing. “Can you give us a list?†the marketers asked.
“We knew that if we could identify them in their second trimester, there’s a good chance we could capture them for years,†Pole told me. “As soon as we get them buying diapers from us, they’re going to start buying everything else too. If you’re rushing through the store, looking for bottles, and you pass orange juice, you’ll grab a carton. Oh, and there’s that new DVD I want. Soon, you’ll be buying cereal and paper towels from us, and keep coming back.â€
Members of UK Parliament Recommend Censoring Online ‘Extremism’
February 17th, 2012Via: Electronic Frontier Foundation:
In a report published last week, members of the United Kingdom Parliament concluded that the Internet plays a major role in the radicalization of terrorists and called on the government to pressure Internet Service Providers in Britain and abroad to censor online speech. The Roots of Violent Radicalisation places the Internet ahead of prisons, universities, and religious establishments in propagating radical beliefs and ultimately recommends that the government “develop a code of practice for the removal of material which promotes violent extremism†binding ISPs.
While the Terrorism Act 2006 authorizes British law enforcement agencies to order certain material to be removed from websites, lawmakers on the Home Affairs Committee stated that “service providers themselves should be more active in monitoring the material they host.†Their report raises serious concerns that political and religious speech will be suppressed. Security expert Peter Neumann who testified before the Committee asked why websites like YouTube and Facebook can’t be as “effective at removing . . . extremist Islamist or extremist right-wing content†as they are at removing sexually explicit content or copyrighted material that violates their own terms of service.
Food Project Proposes Matrix-Style Vertical Chicken Farms
February 17th, 2012There’s a fair amount of freak-out occurring over this, but as far as I can tell, this is an art project that attempts to draw attention to the ghastly nature of current industrial poultry production methods. Oh yeah, I had an, “Oh shit,” moment when I checked out the pictures of the growth pods (which I’d consider must see), but here’s the giveaway:
Ford goes a step further and proposes a “Headless Chicken Solution”. This would involve removing the cerebral cortex of the chicken to inhibit its sensory perceptions so that it could be produced in more densely-packed conditions without the associated distress. The brain stem for the chicken would be kept intact so that the homeostatic functions continue to operate, allowing it to grow.
Man or machine would have to lobotomize each chicken, without killing it. That’s pretty fiddly work. They would also have to remove the claws, connect up all of the input/output plumbing and the electro stimulators. Finally, the meat sack would have to be fitted into the growth frame. Never mind keeping all of that plumbing functioning nominally… My guess is that this would be an outstanding method of breeding new and terrifying antibiotic resistant pathogens.
Thumbs up for drawing attention to the Meatrix, but you’ll have a Mr. Fusion on your Delorean before you get any chicken meat this way.
Via: Wired:
Architecture student André Ford has proposed a new system for the mass production of chicken that removes the birds’ cerebral cortex so that they don’t experience the horrors of being packed together tightly in vertical farms.
…
After this “desensitisation”, the chickens could then be stacked into huge urban farms with around 1,000 chickens hooked up to each large vertical frames — a little like the network of pods the humans are connected to in The Matrix. The feet of the chickens would also be removed in order to pack more in. There could be dozens of these frames in the vertical farming system, which Ford refers to as the Centre for Unconscious Farming. Food, water and air would be delivered via a network of tubes and excrement would be removed in the same way. This technique could achieve a density of around 11.7 chickens per cubic metre instead of the current 3.2 chickens achieved in broiler houses.
A challenge for Ford’s system would be the lack of muscular stimulation. However, Ford proposes using electric shocks similar to that used in other lab meat experiments.
Ford argues that his solution is no more shocking than existing food production techniques. “The realities of the existing systems of production are just as shocking,” he told Wired.co.uk, “but they are hidden behind the sentimental guise of traditional farming scenes that we as consumers hold in our minds and see on our food packaging.”
India: Government Will Track Positions of All Mobile Phone Users
February 16th, 2012Via: The Indian Express:
The government is looking to track all mobile phone users.
As per amendments made to operators’ licences, beginning May 31, operators would have to provide the Department of Telecommunications real-time details of users’ locations in latitudes and longitudes.
Documents obtained by The Indian Express show that details shall initially be provided for mobile numbers specified by the government. Within three years, service providers will have to provide information on locations of all users.
Egregious Vote Fraud in Maine
February 16th, 2012Update: Busted—Maine GOP Allegedly Recounting Caucus Votes
Via: Politico:
The Maine Republican Party, under fire from Ron Paul supporters for its mishandling of the state’s recent caucuses, is now re-canvassing counties and municipalities to recount vote totals.
POLITICO obtained an email from the State Republican Party asking local chairmen to send them the vote totals from their local straw polls.
“County Chairman & Town Chairman,†an email written by a state Republican Party staffer reads. “We are reconfirming the totals from the Presidential Preference Straw poll. Can you please EMAIL ME the totals from your towns. For County Chairman if you are emailing the total for your entire county can you please list the towns that are included.â€
—End Update—
Via: The Rachel Maddow Show:
High Demand for Machinists in the U.S. [???]
February 16th, 2012There is a critical shortage of machinists?
Really?
Millions of people are out of work and these companies can’t fill these positions because of lack of skills?
Via: CNN:
U.S. factories are creating many new jobs. But owners are hard pressed to find skilled American workers to fill them.
There is a “critical shortage of machinists,” a common and crucial position in factories, said Rob Akers, vice president at the National Tooling and Machining Association. “Enrollment in this field in technical schools has been down for a long time.”
The problem comes at a terrible time. Domestic contract manufacturers — known as “job shops” — are seeing a boom in business.
In the case of Win-Tech, a Kennesaw, Ga., manufacturer, orders are coming in fast and furious from its customers in the defense and aerospace industries.
But the company’s owner Dennis Winslow is more concerned than elated.
Winslow’s been trying to add 12 more workers to his staff of 42 to meet the increased demand, but he’s struggling.
“I’m facing a real conundrum,” he said. “There are so many unemployed people in the country. But I can’t find the skill sets that I need. I would hire tomorrow if I could.”
For more than a year, Winslow has been looking for manual machinists, quality control inspectors and machinists trained to use computer-controlled systems.
He said he may be forced to hire people who are not fully skilled, and then train them.
…
As the United States outsourced its manufacturing jobs over the last few decades, the country lost a significant chunk of its manufacturing talent pool, said Mitch Free, CEO of MFG.com, an online directory that matches businesses with domestic manufacturers.
“Now, as manufacturing is slowly coming back, we just don’t have this talent quickly available,” said Free, a machinist by training.
Related: Dumping China for American Job Shops
Several Large Financial Services Companies Facing Credit Downgrades of Two to Three Levels
February 16th, 2012Via: Bloomberg:
UBS AG, Credit Suisse Group AG (CSGN) and Morgan Stanley’s credit ratings may be cut by as many as three levels by Moody’s Investors Service, which is reviewing 17 banks and securities firms with global capital markets operations.
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS), Deutsche Bank AG (DBK), JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) and Citigroup Inc. (C) are among companies that may be downgraded by two levels, Moody’s said in a statement, adding that the “guidance is indicative only.†Moody’s today cut some European insurers’ ratings based on risks stemming from the region’s sovereign debt crisis.
The potential downgrades, which may raise borrowing costs and force banks to increase collateral, put the ratings company at odds with bond investors, who are sticking with bets that new capital rules and trading limits will make the financial firms safer in the long run. Funding costs have climbed for banks worldwide as Greece’s debt woes roil markets.
The Pentagon’s $51 Billion ‘Black’ Budget
February 16th, 2012If you find this Wired piece interesting, definitely check out, Blank Spots on the Map: The Dark Geography of the Pentagon’s Secret World by Trevor Paglen. As an outsider, Paglen has no access to the black world, but he sort of feels around the edges of it and you really start to get a sense of how sprawling and massive it is. (And he doesn’t get into any woowoo at all.)
Via: Wired:
The military keeps a lot of little things secret. It could be the exact range of a jammer, sensitive missile data or the timing of a raid. But the larger context — that jammers and missiles exist, or that our forces conduct raids — is unclassified and even listed in the Pentagon’s budget for all to see.
These secrets are different. Their names are obscured by code words, or simply listed as “classified programs.†But with a little digging, we can get a (limited) sense of how much money is being spent on the U.S. government’s most secret military projects. In fact, you can take a look for yourself. We’ve put together this spreadsheet with the latest information. Feel free to add, subtract and edit it — kind of like a classified cash wiki.
Research Credit: bretwalda
