A three-year government investigation has found no wrongdoing by Bush-era Pentagon officials when they gave war briefings to retired military analysts who served as TV and radio commentators.
The probe by the Pentagon inspector general was a response to a 2008 Pulitzer Prize-winning article in the New York Times that implied the former military officers, some of whom worked for or were defense contractors, received financial favors in return for their commentary and that they were tools in a propaganda campaign.
Inspector general: Bush-era Pentagon officials cleared of wrongdoing
For Republican candidates, politics trump science
I’ve seen the Gallup Poll that found a majority of Republican voters believe world history began less than 10,000 years ago, back when man was trying to keep those damn dinosaurs from trampling through the flower garden.
[Lt. Gov. Jennifer] Carroll, in her fire-and-brimstone speech on Thursday, spoke disparagingly of how “some of our political leaders bow down to scientists and let them have the stage to push their evolution.” She made it plenty clear that the coming Republican revolution would no longer allow “the minority to poison the minds of the majority.”
Occupy Wall Street Tweets Crackdown (Day 8)
In Occupy Wall Street's eighth day, protesters claim on their Twitter account today that they have been targeted by tear gas, and at least 50 people have been arrested during their march through the city this afternoon headed toward the United Nations building.
Member of Occupy Wall Street's Public Relations Working Group Patrick Bruner said that he heard accounts of the tear gas from people who were monitoring the protest's livestream and from another person who was in contact with someone "on the ground."
Bones From The Badlands Belong To New Dinosaur
Researchers made quite a find this week in Utah: a new species of raptor dinosaur. The ancient creature, a meat-eater, was small and fast, with talon-like toes.
"These animals were incredibly fast, incredibly intelligent and some of them wielded very significant claws and sharp teeth," Dr. Lindsay Zanno of the New University of Wisconsin tells NPR's Scott Simon. Zanno led the dig team that made the discovery.
Not so simple: U.S. spy agency trying to go mobile
Troy Lange knows that just mentioning cellphones is enough to give security officers heartburn at the National Security Agency.
Lange, as the NSA's mobility mission manager, is developing a smartphone that he wants to bring inside the super-secret U.S. spy agency to access classified information and apps while on the move. He wants it to work as easily as any of the smartphones those that are so ubiquitous in the outside world.
Signing Hydrofracking Leases, and Now Having Regrets
Four years ago a man and a woman knocked on Katharine D. Dewart’s door, offering easy money for the use of her land.
Handing her a brochure that included serene before-and-after pictures, they explained that a natural gas company was seeking to drill somewhere on her 35 acres of wildflower fields surrounded by hemlock woods in this Tompkins County town near Ithaca.
Voter ID laws target rarely occurring voter fraud
Several states adopted new laws last year requiring that people show a photo ID when they come to vote even though the kind of election fraud that the laws are intended to stamp out is rare. Even supporters of the new laws are hard pressed to come up with large numbers of cases in which someone tried to vote under a false identify.
"I've compared this to the snake oil salesman. You got a cold? I got snake oil. Your foot aches? I got snake oil," said election law expert Justin Levitt, who wrote "The Truth About Voter Fraud" for The Brennan Center for Justice. "It doesn't seem to matter what the problem is, (voter) ID is being sold as the solution to a whole bunch of things it can't possibly solve."
WTF?!, No Seriously, WTF! - Bank Of America Holds Patent On 'Changing Your Emotions' During Customer Service Call
Systems and methods for inducing a change in a human physiological characteristic. The physiological characteristic may correspond to an emotional state of a dialogue participant. The dialogue participant may be an individual participating in a conversation. The outcome of the conversation may be related to a business objective, such as providing high quality call center services. A sensor may monitor the physiologic characteristic. A processor may relate the physiologic characteristic to an emotional state. The processor may provide feedback to the individual based on the emotional state. The feedback may be formulated to change the individual's emotional state.
We wonder, do they also have patents on the following:
- Ken Lewis' genius decision to buy Countrywide and assume billions in liability.
- Having the worst customer service of any U.S. bank.
- Overpaying for Merrill Lynch.
- Robbing shareholders.
- Using Repo 105s to hide true balance sheet exposures.
- Foreclosing on homeowners in violation of 400-year-old contract law.
- Destroying lives.
- Losing the mortgage note.
GI gets 7 years for killing Afghan boy
A U.S. soldier who admitted his role in a plot to kill Afghan civilians was sentenced Friday to seven years in prison for killing a teenage boy.
Pfc. Andrew Holmes' sentence was limited to seven years as part of his agreement to plead guilty in military court Thursday to unpremeditated murder. Holmes also pleaded guilty to smoking marijuana and keeping the finger of an Afghan victim as a souvenir.
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