Month: January 2014
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Freedom Industries Cited at Second West Virginia Site
from ksdk.com: The company whose spill contaminated the water supply for 300,000 West Virginians has been cited for violations at a second facility where it’s storing chemicals. Department of Environmental Protection spokesman Tom Aluise says inspectors found five violations Monday at a Nitro site where Freedom Industries moved its coal-cleaning chemicals after Thursday’s spill. Inspectors…
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US physically hacks 100,000 foreign computers
NSA spies have inserted circuitry into computers in China, Russia, EU, India, Saudi and Pakistan to gain intelligence. from aljazeera.com: The United States has implanted devices in nearly 100,000 computers to spy on institutions such as the Chinese and Russian military, EU trade groups and agencies within Saudi Arabia, India and Pakistan. The New York Times on Tuesday cited documents…
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Helicopter Over Baltimore To Monitor Radiation
from baltimore.cbslocal.com: Homeland Security officials will conduct tests this week that could save lives and they’ll be done from a helicopter flying extremely low over the city. Officials will test for radiation so they can respond more quickly in case of a nuclear or dirty bomb attack… Eyes to the sky will notice an unusual…
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‘Devil’s Due’ Baby Prank Scares the Hell Out of New York
from thewrap.com: New Yorkers weren’t only victims of extreme cold earlier this month, they were the victims of a terrifying promotional prank for the upcoming found-footage horror movie “Devil’s Due.” “Devil Baby Attack,” a new video that launched on Tuesday, features an animatronic spawn of Satan rampaging through the snow-covered streets of NYC via a…
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Sex, politics and François Hollande: How France plays by its own rules
from theguardian.com: Sex will succeed where wars in Syria and the Central African Republic, questions of racial tension and the future of the European Union have all failed. It will persuade the world to do what it has so rarely done before – and tune into a press conference by the president of France. The…
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Net neutrality gets a kick in the teeth
A US court has ruled against the FCC’s Open Internet regulations, putting the future of net neutrality completely up in the air. from zdnet.com: The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has ruled in the case of Verizon et al. v. Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and it’s bad, bad news…
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Supreme Court hands Monsanto victory over farmers on GMO seed patents, ability to sue
from RT.com: The US Supreme Court upheld biotech giant Monsanto’s claims on genetically-engineered seed patents and the company’s ability to sue farmers whose fields are inadvertently contaminated with Monsanto materials. The high court left intact Monday a federal appeals court decision that threw out a 2011 lawsuit from the Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association…
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Fracking study finds combustible levels of methane in water after EPA gave the all clear
from RT.com: A report has found contaminated drinking water in parts of Texas, infuriating residents who had pressured the EPA to test for methane only to see the agency back off when the company allegedly responsible claimed that its own tests proved otherwise. Steve Lipsky, a resident of Fort Worth, Texas, complained to the Environmental…
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Diane Keaton’s Golden Globes speech spotlights Woody Allen’s complicated history with women
from salon.com: “One hundred seventy-nine of the world’s most captivating actresses have appeared in Woody Allen’s films,” Diane Keaton said last night while accepting the Golden Globes’ Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievement. But at least one of those actresses wasn’t watching. Mia Farrow, Allen’s longtime partner in life and in love, tweeted last…
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Beyonce Writes Essay on Gender Equality
from usatoday.com: Who runs the world? Beyoncé says women still don’t — yet. The “Run the World (Girls)” singer acknowledges there is work to be done to make things equal for women, and she explains why in a short essay titled Gender Equality Is a Myth! “It (gender equality) isn’t a reality yet,” writes Beyoncé…
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Talking Peace, Waging War
from indybay.org: Obama’s war on Syria rages. It’s taken a horrific toll nationwide. Tens of thousands died. Dozens more do daily. Millions were displaced. Numbers internally and abroad range up to one-third of Syria’s population. Humanitarian crisis conditions exist. Human suffering is extreme. Peace talks reflect more illusion than reality. On January 22, they’re scheduled…
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Suntory to Buy Jim Beam in $16 Billion Deal for U.S. Brand
from bloomberg.com: Suntory Holdings Ltd., the closely held Japanese whiskey and beer maker, agreed to buy Beam Inc. (BEAM) for $16 billion including debt to gain brands such as Maker’s Mark whiskey and create the world’s third-largest premium spirits company. Investors in the maker of Jim Beam and Canadian Club liquor will get $83.50 in…
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Why @Google paid $3.2B for @Nest, a thermostat company
from computerworld.com: Google is moving into your home. On Monday, the Internet company said it was acquiring Nest, a maker of smart smoke alarms and thermostats, in a move that gives Google a strong foothold in a hot new market known as the “connected home.” The idea behind the connected home is to connect heating…
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Ariel Sharon’s Death: The *yawn* End Is Near
from ghosttheory.com / disinfo.com: Does a note left by a venerated Orthodox Rabbi shortly before his death indicate that the Apocalypse and the ’1000 years of peace’ are just around the corner? Rabbi Yitzhak Kaduri died in Israel in 2006 at the age of 108. At his funeral 24 hours later it is estimated that…
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Most children get food and beverage marketing at school, study says
from latimes.com: Most students are exposed in school to efforts by food and beverage companies to sell food or gain brand loyalty, despite a decline in some kinds of commercial enterprises, including in soda machine contracts, researchers reported Monday. High school students get the most exposure, and for almost 64% of elementary school students, the…