Oh, look. Now they’re all concerned about protecting our phones.

Wireless carriers to create database to fight phone theft LINK.

Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s Ex-Right Hand Man Disbarred Over Ethics Violations LINK.

Excellent legal beagle work.

“On April 6, NYPD gathered once again for the nightly ¨eviction theater¨ only to find Occupiers had moved to the sidewalks and erected a sign declaring their legal right to do so. When police moved in arrest them, Occupiers on livestream read the law permitting sleeping on sidewalks as political protest. In Metropolitan v. Safir, the U.S. District Court covering New York City ruled that ¨ the First Amendment of the United States Constitution does not allow the City to prevent an orderly political protest from using public sleeping as a means of symbolic expression.”

“The police backed down. The tactic quickly became a model for other Occupations. Occupy DC can be found sleeping outside of a Bank of America near their old encampment at McPherson Square, while Occupy Philadelphia have taken their message and sleeping bags to Wells Fargo on Chestnut Street, near occupied Independence Mall.”

LINK.

We need more of this (from the UK):

Trust pushes for open access to research

“One of the world’s largest research charities, the Wellcome Trust, is to support efforts by scientists to make their work freely available for all.

“The Trust is to establish a free, online publication to compete with established academic journals.
. . .

“More than 9,000 scientists are boycotting a leading paid-for publisher for restricting access to their papers.”

LINK.

Those of you taking early morning walks in LA, should be wary of possible ursine encounters.

hi-larious

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has received 25,600 petitions for H-1B visas since April 2, nearly twice as many as it received for the entire first month of last year’s application period

Maybe that’s good news for the economy but it really blows for the skilled workers here – the companies asking for those H-1B visas want to pay their immigrant engineers less than half of what they would pay engineers who are US citizens. Even better, the immigrants can’t complain, ask for more money or quit as in doing any of those would result in them losing their job and thus losing their visa. What I’d like to see is a list of companies who employ the H-1B folks and what exactly is so ‘special’ about their skills compared to US citizens. BTW 10 years ago I would see ads seeking engineers with masters degrees & 5+ years experience in bleeding-edge tech. The kicker? The employer was offering $25K/year. Since no US citizen engineer would take that as the going rate at the time for engineers w/batchelors degrees was $50K-$80K, the employer would then request an H-1B for the position.

Reply to #3

This is encouraging news going forward. Too bad it wasn’t on the platter last fall, but live and learn.

So it was a ruling from US District court covering NYC. . . How far would that ruling extend? A useful precedent for the 99% to tap elsewhere? If it’s a right, perhaps it needs to be widely exercised.

“Ben Bernanke takes a look at shadow banking, or the new money, if you prefer.”; “The Fed will seek an “appropriate balance” between a ban on proprietary trading and a rule that “allows appropriate market making,” Bernanke said.”; shit, why doesn’t he just come out and admit he’s Dimon’s poodle, gdmfer.

“Demand for skilled worker visas is a decent sign for the economy.” ; NO, it just shows that the corporations still don’t want to pay U.S. citizens a decent salary.

“British Prime Minister David Cameron will visit Burma, a success story for Western foreign policy so far.”; you got to be kidding; or can you say Maldives?

Bolivia ‘to end Brazil firm’s contract for Amazon road’
Bolivian President Evo Morales says he is rescinding the contract of a Brazilian firm to build a controversial road through the Amazon rainforest.

[Sounds good, but . . . ]

“Mr Morales did not say if the road project would continue or if OAS would be compensated.”

LINK.

After much effort, success!

U.S. teen birth rate drops

“The rate for teenage moms reached its lowest point since record-keeping began in 1940.

. . .

“Even as it leads the nation with 55 teen births per 1,000 girls, Mississippi’s rate has been falling like everywhere else. It dropped 21 percent over three years. New Hampshire has the lowest teen birth rate at just under 16.”

LINK.

The Soltz Think Progress article is effectively ignorant of the real nature of the pertinent Florida law on homicide, use of force and justification. Heck it was pretty cherry picked from Iraq as well, from what I can discern. It makes a great bleating shout of a claim without much real honesty or factual depth and accuracy.

Perhaps you would care to state what should be corrected.

I remember have a long talk with Paul David on this issue some years ago. Apparently, when the Europeans set up their internet pipes, the decision was mace to finance it privately rather than publicly, and major publishers like Bertelsmann and North-Holland were allowed to acquire property rights in what would otherwise be public data bases to fund it. There was a similar move to privatize information of that kind in the US, but because the major academic journals were owned by professional associations, the promoters couldn’t put it through. Now the publish or perish ethos of university promotions has opened the door to a lot of private labels that you either have to pay for out of your grant or have access via your university. This is costly for people working in smaller institutions that can’t afford the fees.

I regularly get notices of new working papers in my field. About a year ago I received one about a paper on income inequality by a friend in France. I went to the site and found out I had to pay for it. Wrote my friend to ask why his institution was associated with a pay for view outfit. Working papers are meant to be circulated.

The publishers would like to get a lock on circulation of information just like the bankers have a lock on the payments system.

good article on Viktor Bout by Andrew Feinstein: http://allafrica.com/stories/201204100685.html

“In 2003, shortly after the invasion of Iraq, the American military faced a major problem getting supplies into Baghdad, as planes came under fire and landing conditions became treacherous. The United States and its contractors turned to a range of air cargo suppliers.

One of the most consistently used was Irbis Air – an airline owned by Bout. From 2003 to 2004 alone, Irbis Air conducted hundreds of runs to Baghdad and other Iraqi airports, carrying everything from boots to bullets.

Irbis Air landed in Baghdad 92 times between January and May 2004, while also conducting deliveries elsewhere in Iraq. Bout’s client list in Iraq made for intriguing and damning reading: The United States Air Mobility Command, Federal Express, Fluor and KBR – which was then part of the Halliburton group of which Dick Cheney had been CEO.

At the time Bout was the subject of an Interpol arrest warrant,”

Well, David, my private loans have lower interest than my federal. In fact, one of my private loans is half the interest of the federal.

Thanks for sharing. That publish-or-perish thing really got going when I was in academe long ago. Seems it’s been turned up a huge notch to publish-for-profit-or-perish. Add to that the cost of college and graduate school today and the outrageous interests on student loans–gah! Knowledge for sale! Knowledge for sale!

The elites continue to bull-doze through in pursuit of their very own specific interests.

Demand for skilled worker visas is a decent sign for the economy.

Horsepucky! It simply means that American workers cost too much. Xerox has dismissed many American workers and gone to an Indian firm, HCL, for replacements working from India.

HCL is the symbol for hydrochloric acid, an apt name for the process. Eat away at employing American workers.