U.S. official says pre-infected computer tech entering country

This news is very discouraging…we, those with computers, could be pawns for other governments or private interests!

Confirming years of warnings from government and private security experts, a top Homeland Security official has acknowledged that computer hardware and software is already being imported to the United States preloaded with spyware and security-sabotaging components.

The remarks by Greg Schaffer, the Department of Homeland Security's acting deputy undersecretary for national protection and programs, came Thursday during a tense exchange at a hearing of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. The panel is considering an Obama administration proposal to tighten monitoring and controls on computer equipment imported for critical government and communications infrastructure.

Schaffer didn't say whether the equipment he was talking about included end-user consumer tech like retail laptops, DVDs and media players. If so, his comments, first reported Friday morning by Fast Company, would be the first time the United States has publicly confirmed that foreign consumer technology is arriving in the country already loaded with nasty bugs like key-logging software, botnet components and even software designed to defeat security programs installed on the same machine.

Schaffer made the statement under questioning from Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, who noted that "the issue of software infrastructure (and) hardware built overseas with items embedded in them already by the time they get to the United States ... poses, obviously, security and intellectual property risks."

DEA Closes Eyes to Evidence, Rejects Petition to Reschedule Marijuana for Medical Use

After nine years of regulatory delay, the DEA rejected a petition by a coalition of groups including California NORML to reschedule marijuana for medical use.

The response came only after advocates sued in federal court for unreasonable delay.The petition, filed in 2002 by the Cannabis Rescheduling Coalition (http://drugscience.org), cited a growing body of scientific evidence plus the approval of medical marijuana in several states as grounds that marijuana qualifies as having "accepted medical use" and should be removed from Schedule I.

The DEA countered that none of the evidence was valid since it did not meet the standard of FDA new drug application trials.The DEA  cited a five-year old DHHS paper claiming that marijuana did not have medical use.  While referencing innumerable studies showing potential health risks of marijuana, it failed to reference any of the hundreds of studies showing medical efficacy of marijuana on the grounds that they did not meet the standard of well-controlled, large-scale, double blind FDA approval trials.  However, none of the negative evidence cited by the government met that standard, either.

The DEA failed to mention that it has deliberately obstructed FDA trials from taking place by denying the approval of a research-grade marijuana growing facility at the University of Massachusetts, contrary to the recommendation of its own administrative law judge. The only existing legal source of marijuana for U.S. researchers is the National Institute on Drug Abuse, which has stated that it will not pursue FDA studies of the drug for medical use.

"The government has created a Catch-22 situation, in which the DEA is free to ignore mounting scientific evidence and the experience of countless physicians and users who have found medical marijuana effective in order to protect its bureaucratic position," said California NORML director Dale Gieringer, who helped author the re-scheduling petition. " The government's response raises serious questions about its competence to manage Americans' health care. Surveys have shown that patients who use medical marijuana can dramatically reduce their use of other, more costly but less effective FDA-approved prescription drugs. Yet DEA drug bureaucrats are deliberately ignoring these facts so as to protect their bloated agency."

Advocates are planning how to challenge  the DEA decision. Medical marijuana advocates are supporting a bill by Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), the State's Medical Marijuana Protection Act of 2011 (H.R. 1983), which would end marijuana's schedule one status and let states regulate its medical availability. Under a policy recently reaffirmed by the Obama administration, the federal government has arrested, charged , threatened, and/or imprisoned hundreds of individuals in states with legal medical marijuana for violating  federal laws. (http://www.canorml.org/fedcasessum.html.)

California NORML is calling on  Congress to investigate the DEA's malfeasance with regards to medical marijuana.

DEA answer to CRC petition:

http://americansforsafeaccess.org/downloads/CRC_Petition_DEA_Answer.pdf

CRC rescheduling petition:

http://www.drugscience.org/PDF/Petition_Final_2002.pdf

canorml@canorml.org

California NORML, 2261 Market St. #278A, San Francisco CA 94114 -(415) 563- 5858 - www.canorml.org

Finally Friday: poo police, win a baby game, and French robbers copy Wild West tactics to rob train

Good Morning Humboldt County!

I’m looking forward to another beautiful day. Have you got your cup of coffee or tea? Well then, join me this morning as we check out the news. Let’s start off with a case of POO POLICE!

Doggie DNA nails owners of pets leaving smelly piles

Some pet owners who failed to clean up after their dogs got a nasty surprise from apartment complex manager Deb Logan. Using DNA evidence, Logan started fining the irresponsible dog owners $100 per offense. Logan, property manager at Twin Ponds in Nashua, New Hampshire, started using a dog DNA-testing system to reveal which pooches were leaving feces scattered about outside.

Logan says the DNA technology called "PooPrints", developed by BioPet Vet Labs of Knoxville, Tennessee, is working "amazingly" well for Twin Ponds, a 339-unit complex that is home to about 241 dogs.

At Twin Ponds, all tenants with a dog now must use a PooPrints pet DNA sampling kit when they move in. To set up a profile, owners come to Logan's office, swab their dogs' cheeks for a saliva sample, and Twin Ponds then sends that to BioPet, which creates a reference database that includes all the community's canines. Photo source

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New "win a baby" game draws fire

A controversial IVF lottery will launch in Britain this month giving prospective parents the chance to win thousands of pounds toward expensive fertility treatments in top clinics.The scheme, which the media have dubbed "win a baby," has already run into trouble on ethical grounds with critics calling it inappropriate and demeaning to human reproduction.

Britain's Gambling Commission has granted a license to fertility charity, To Hatch, to run the game from July 30. photo source

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French train robbers revive Wild West tactics

In a scene taken straight out of an American Wild West movie, masked men robbed a freight train in southern France Thursday night after blocking the railway tracks with shopping carts and metal beams. About 20 bandits looted several carriages and then vanished into the night. It was unclear what was taken.

"Attacks on trains aren't new, but it is a pretty rare phenomenon," David-Olivier Reverdy, a police union official in the area said. "It's worthy of stagecoach attacks in the Wild West," he said.

photo source

Time for me to head on down the road…

What's in your navel? Hundreds and hundreds of types of bacteria

When I was a teenager we use to kid about contemplating our navels to reach enlightenment.

It was back in the 60s and there were gurus and yogis everywhere.

Recently, scientists from the Belly Button Biodiversity project went navel-gazing and discovered 662 new species of bacteria.

Yuckkkk…read all about it here.

Immortal jellyfish: Does it really live forever?

While it is often joked that cats have nine lives, a certain species of jellyfish has been deemed “immortal” by scientists who have observed its ability to, when in crisis, revert its cells to their earliest form and grow anew.

That means that these tiny creatures, 4 mm to 5 mm long, potentially have infinite lives.

The creature, known scientifically as Turritopsis nutricula, was discovered in the Mediterranean Sea in 1883, but its unique regeneration was not known until the mid-1990s.

Muscle cells can become sperm or eggs, or nerve cells can change into muscle cells, “revealing a transformation potential unparalleled in the animal kingdom,” according to the original study of the species published in 1996.

Father gives daughter most unique name in America

It Was Bound To Happen: Baby Named After Facebook "Like" Button

Given the sheer number of people on Facebook — and given the vast number of parents who have no problem saddling a child with a name that will require an explanation for its entire lifetime — it was inevitable that someone out there would be so inspired by Facebook that they would name their kid after the site's "Like" button.

"We named her Like because it's modern and innovative," said the little girl's father. "I checked that the name does not exist anywhere elsewhere in the country, that was the main condition for me." The new pop says his baby girl's name is going over well, at least with his Facebook pals: "When I posted her picture and name on Facebook I got 40 'likes,'... Considering that I have only a little more than 100 friends on the network that's a lot."

image source

Thursday Thoughts: weird crime and punishment stories

Man in Spongebob pajamas robs store

A man wearing Spongebob Squarepants pajama bottoms and an accomplice robbed a Family Dollar Store in north Harris County, officials said Wednesday.

Investigators said the first robber was a black male in his late teens to early 20s, 5 feet 5 to 5 feet 7 inches tall, 200 to 220 pounds, with short Afro hair and a light complexion. He wore a light blue McDonald's work shirt with yellow Spongebob Squarepants pajama bottoms.

 

Burglar caught with blow-up doll in closet

This burglar couldn't wait to get his hands on the merchandise.Police said they caught a man inside a sex shop in Woodbridge in Virginia's Prince William County, Inside Nova reported. It happened early Tuesday morning at the MVC Late Night adult store along Jefferson Davis Highway. Police found Justin Dale Little Jim, 28, in the closet with a blow-up doll, prosecutors said. According to Inside Nova, law enforcement said Jim was caught "attempting sexual relations" with the plastic doll. He’s now charged with burglary, grand larceny and felony destruction of property, police said.

Bad-boy taxman paid dominatrix with city money

A tax collector who pleaded guilty to raiding town coffers of nearly $800,000 and using some of the money to pay a dominatrix is due to be sentenced on Wednesday.

Hudson County Assistant Prosecutor Leo Hernandez said Bartolozzi, a Secaucus city employee for the past 25 years, stole about $750,000 in tax funds between February 2008 to May 2009. He also stole about $25,000 from the local municipal union, according to prosecutors.

Bartolozzi made 19 wire transfers to a dominatrix, named "Tara Juliana," at addresses in five different states and internationally, prosecutors said. The dominatrix's website at one time included a picture of Bartolozzi, the dominatrix and others, the Journal reported.

Woman wearing purse on head tries to rob store

A woman wearing a purse on her head who claimed she was armed with a gun attempted to rob the Grill & Grocery store on Highway 700 in Ruffin on Saturday, Rockingham County deputies said.Deputies said the clerk asked the woman to show her gun, but the woman refused. She did have a bulge under her shirt, deputies said. Deputies said the woman left after being given no money and drove away in a red car that according to a witness was parked in a nearby driveway.No video of the incident was captured because the store's video surveillance system wasn't working properly, deputies said. Anyone with information about the crime is asked to call Crimestoppers at 336-349-9683. Editor’s Note: the photo is not of the woman who robbed the store in the story. Just a way of helping you envision what she might have looked like.

That’s all for now junior crime stoppers. It’s time for me to head on down the road…

On a starry starry night…they saw a strange sight

photo via stumbleupon

Why Do the Police Have Tanks? The Strange and Dangerous Militarization of the US Police Force

Editor’s Note: This is a guest opinion. 

Posted on July 6, 2011 by Rania Khalek

“Just after midnight on May 16, 2010, a SWAT team threw a flash-bang grenade through the window of a 25-year-old man while his 7-year-old daughter slept on the couch as her grandmother watched television. The grenade landed so close to the child that it burned her blanket. The SWAT team leader then burst into the house and fired a single shot which struck the child in the throat, killing her. The police were there to apprehend a man suspected of murdering a teenage boy days earlier. The man they were after lived in the unit above the girl’s family.

The shooting death of Aiyana Mo’Nay Stanley-Jones sounds like it happened in a war zone. But the tragic SWAT team raid took place in Detroit.

Clearly, the mission of the police officer is incompatible with that of a soldier, so why is it that local police departments are looking more and more like paramilitary units in a combat zone? The line between military and civilian law enforcement has been drawn for good reason, but following the drug war and more recently, the war on terror, that line is inconspicuously eroding, a trend that appears to be worsening by the decade.”

Read whole article here. --  Photo source

“And she finally stopped playing their song, when she realized she was dancing alone.” - Anonymous

photo source

Wednesday 1st Read: Shy bladders, store bans drunks trying to buy puppies, and a janitor/hero who won a lottery but still works

Good Morning Humboldt County!

Pull up a chair, or a stool, and have a cup of coffee or tea with me. This morning already shows the promise of another beautiful day. Let’s get started shall we?

Too shy to go? Bathroom stage fright a real condition

Given the choice, you probably prefer your home porcelain throne to using a public toilet. But for more than 20 million people in North America, peeing in a public restroom is no simple matter.

People with a "shy bladder," a real condition also known as paruresis, are fearful of urinating when other people are nearby.

"What people worry about is being in a bathroom near other people and not being able to urinate, and that others will notice and form judgments about them -- that they're weird, defective, inferior, or for men, not masculine," says Carl Robbins, director of training for the Anxiety and Stress Disorders Institute of Maryland in Baltimore, who has worked with paruresis patients for more than 20 years.

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Store bans drunken customers from buying puppies

A New York City pet store that's surrounded by bars has banned drunken puppy-buying.

Workers at Le Petite Puppy in Greenwich Village say customers tend to stumble in after happy hour and purchase a dog without thinking.

Drunken customers now are forbidden to even hold the puppies, because they can drop them.

Store owner Dana Rich tells WINS-AM that she instructs people who have clearly been drinking to come back the next day.

Employees say they stress how much work it is to own a dog. They say they would rather lose a sale than send a puppy into an unsafe home.

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He won $3.4 million — then went back to work as janitor

Someone has to turn on the lights in life. Someone has to do the jobs we take for granted. But you’d think Tyrone Curry would kiss his trash sack goodbye.

Five years ago, the Evergreen High School custodian won the Washington State Lottery’s Quinto game. “I was dumping garbage,” he says. “Just like today. This is where I was when I found out I won the jackpot and took off running."

You see, Tyrone isn’t just the Evergreen High School custodian; he also coaches the track team. And that’s where he decided to splurge with his lottery winnings.

“I’m getting excited!” he says, watching runners circling toward him on the school’s old cinder track. This summer he’s building them a new one. State-of-the-art. Cost him 40,000 bucks. 

His track team captain, DeVante Botello, is having a tough time. The 18-year-old's mother died of a heart attack, just before his graduation.

“We were really close," DeVante says. “Her death left a void at home. I slept in the living room after her heart attack and woke up waiting to go help her.”

But she was gone. “My family is in shambles. I’m kind of floundering. I don’t know what to do.”

‘A real hero’
The honor student was just dragging his pen across paper, until his track coach showed him how to play the game of life. “He taught me perseverance,” DeVante says. “How to hold on and deal with the cards you're dealt. ‘Power through,’ ” Coach said. “ ‘Life is hard.’ ”

DeVante's eyes glisten. “Coach has this soft chuckle and then a nod. That power nod gets me every time. He just wanted to let me know that he was there for me.”  He swallows hard. “Coach said I didn't have to feel alone.”

When life throws curves, people often dwell on the terrible things that happen. They isolate themselves in grief. Tyrone asked DeVante to notice those who were willing to put their hands on his shoulders and help him get through the ordeal. The boy’s father was not around. Tyrone offered to pay for college.

“When I was coming up, I just had my mom,” Tyrone says with a shrug. “So I'm here for him.”

“Coach is probably the most amazing man I'm ever gonna meet,” DeVante says. “He's my hero — a real hero.” One who hasn't gone to the moon or scored a touchdown, doesn't have a reality show, hasn't written a book. “Why do you need to write a book when you just live the way he does and reaches out and affects so many lives?” DeVante asks.

DeVante's plans now include college. “Whatever I do with my life is gonna be in honor of Tyrone. He is always gonna live on through my actions. I wish I was as good as him. I work for it. I work for it every day. Tyrone Curry, track coach, janitor. I’m never going to forget him.” The millionaire who cares more for other people's dreams than he does his own — the luckiest man alive.

Time for me to head on down the road…