Posts - Americans

Former House Speaker Hastert Paid To Cover Up Underage Sex Crimes

News

The scandal surrounding former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert got deeper and uglier late Friday when reports surfaced that the $3.5 million he’s accused of mishandling was to pay a former student to keep quiet about his sexual abuse of students from when Hastert was a teacher and wrestling coach in Illinois.

Hastert taught in Yorkville, Illinois between 1965 and 1981 and was a teacher and wrestling coach before entering politics. Hastert was indicted by federal prosecutors on Thursday for lying to the FBI about $3.5 million paid to an anonymous person so he could “cover up past misconduct.”

A federal law enforcement official confirmed early Friday night that the former student was a male and a minor at the time the alleged sexual abuse took place. Law enforcement officials said investigators deemed it was not a case of extortion and the claims had merit, as they declined to pursue extortion charges against the recipient of the money.

Haster’s former employer, Yorkville High School, said it had no knowledge of the matter.

“Yorkville Community Unit School District #115 has no knowledge of Mr. Hastert’s alleged misconduct, nor has any individual contacted the District to report any such misconduct,” it said in a statement.

Hastert’s bail was set at $4,500, the U.S. Attorney’s office said Friday. His first appearance in court, for an arraignment, will likely be next week.

The new revelations raises a variety of questions which will surely come to light in the coming weeks.

It also exposes deep corruption of our elected officials, who play by a different set of rules than hard working Americans. There is deep hypocrisy in the sexual abuse revelations as Hastert painted himself as a crusader for child sex abuse victims.

“At home, we put the security of our children first, and Republicans are doing just that in our nation’s House,” he once stated. “We’ve all seen the disturbing headlines about sex offenders and crimes against children. These crimes cannot persist. Protecting our children from Internet predators and child exploitation enterprises are just as high a priority as securing our border from terrorists.”

The word ring hollow and show clearly that our politicians say one thing and do another.

Uber Joins Silicon Valley Privacy Abuser Club, New App Will Track You 24/7

Finance

The latest attack on individual privacy comes courtesy of quasi-legal ride sharing app Uber, which will release an update to their app the week of July 15th that will track your location even when the app is not running in the foreground, a ‘feature’ Uber says is supposed to help “get people on their way more quickly.”

Another way to put it is that it’s a blatant privacy invasion.

Uber has played fast and loose with user privacy in the past, showing at fundraising meetings a secret dashboard which allows its employees to spy on VIP users and where they’ve come and gone.

The new settings would allow the company to spy on users 24/7.

But tracking you 24 hours a day, seven days a week isn’t enough for the super-aggressive company – it will also force you to share your contacts with Uber, allowing the ridesharing company to spam your friends, family, and other contacts with “special offers”, according to a recent blog post.

The stunning abuse of privacy comes at an odd time, as there have been countless privacy-related scandals at the company. In addition to its ‘god view’ dashboard it has also posted data about users’ “Rides of Glory“, or Ubers taken after one-night stands.

The company has set up an email address to answer your privacy questions: privacy@uber.com.

We highly encourage all Americans to let them know how you feel about being tracked all day every day by your taxi company.

U.S. Tried To Destroy North Korean Nuclear Reactor With Copy Of Virus Attack Used On Iran

News

Word leaked late Friday that the U.S. secret agencies, likely a group within the NSA’s Tailored Access Operations group, tried to deploy a version of the Stuxnet computer virus to attack North Korea’s nuclear weapons program but the attack was unsuccessful. The attack supposedly took place five years ago, and was originally part of the Stuxnet attack that was used to destroy Iran’s nuclear program.

The now-famous Stuxnet attack damaged over one thousand of Iran’s centrifuges, the key tool used to enrich uranium.

Intelligence sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, reported that Stuxnet’s developers, who were a joint U.S. – Israeli team, produced a related virus that would become active when it detected Korean language on an infected machine.

While the virus did penetrate North Korea’s computer system it was not able to access the core machines running Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program, One of the sources of the leak is a former high-ranking intelligence official who was briefed on the program.

North Korea’s extreme secrecy and unparalleled isolation from modern communications systems were cited as reasons why the attack failed.

Merely owning a computer requires in North Korea requires police permission, and the open Internet is unknown except to a precious few people. China supplies the country with its single internet connection to the outside world, which actually protects the country somewhat as China is keen to keep its network as closed off as possible as well.

Iran enjoys relatively free internet access and computers and mobile phones are popular and easy to obtain items in the Islamic state.

The North Korean operation is only the second time that the NSA is known to have targeted with software designed to destroy equipment.

Nuclear experts say there are similarities between North Korea and Iran’s nuclear programs, which makes sense given the two countries continue to collaborate on the underlying technology.

Both countries use the same P-2 centrifuges, illicitly obtained when Pakistani nuclear scientist A.Q. Khan, defected to Iran.

Both countries control these centrifuges with software developed by Siemens AG that runs on Microsoft’s Windows operating system. Stuxnet exploited vulnerabilities in both the Siemens and Microsoft packages.

Given the similarities in the programs, it wouldn’t have taken much work to modify Stuxnet to attack both programs.

David Albright, who founded the Institute for Science and International Security and an expert on North Korea’s nuclear activities, thinks U.S. cyber agents probably attempted to infiltrate North Korea’s network by first hacking suppliers from Iran, Pakistan or China and infecting them with the malware.

Revolutionary New Drug Doubles Life Expectancy For Lung Cancer Patients

Health & Wellness

This year is seeing real progress for Americans suffering from deadly lung cancer. First, as we covered earlier, Americans will now have access to a long-known yet unavailable Cuban lung cancer vaccine. On Friday, drug company Bristol-Myers Squibb revealed data that showed a new drug therapy can more than double the life expectancy of some patients, in what researchers are calling a “milestone”.

The drug, Nivolumab, stops cancerous cells that are hiding from the body’s own defenses, allowing the cancer to be attacked by other drugs.

The results were presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology, and were described as “giving real hope to patients”.

Lung cancer kills nearly 1.6 million people every year and widely considered the deadliest form of the disease.

Its hard to treat because it is usually diagnosed late and many people with smoking-related diseases are ineligible for surgical options.

The trial, conducted in Europe and the U.S., was on 582 patients who had advanced lung cancer and had run out of treatment options.

People on the regular course of drugs lived for 9.4 months at that stage, but those who took Nivolumab lived for 12.2 months on average.

But some patients did unbelievably well. Those who had tumors that were producing high levels of PD-L1, the key mechanism targeted by the new drug, lived for another 19.4 months.

Lead researcher Dr Luis Paz-Ares, from Madrid’s Hospital Universitario Doce de Octubre, said: “[The results] mark a milestone in the development of new treatment options for lung cancer.”

“Nivolumab is the first PD-1 inhibitor to show a significant improvement in overall survival in a phase III trial in non-squamous non-small cell lung cancer.”

Many other companies are working hard on similar drugs.

Dr Martin Forster, from the University College London Cancer Institute, is conducting trials of some of them.

“It’s really exciting, I think these drugs will be a paradigm shift in how we treat lung cancer” he said.

He outlined that after chemotherapy fails, current survival rates were “dire”.

“But in those that respond [to immunotherapy] there seems to be very prolonged disease control, I think it’s a huge shift in lung cancer and for patients it’s going to be dramatic,” he said.

Dr Alan Worsley, who works for a cancer charity said that “This trial shows that blocking lung cancer’s ability to hide from immune cells may be better than current chemotherapy treatments.”

“Advances like these are giving real hope for lung cancer patients, who have until now had very few options.”

The drugs may also work on a wide range of cancers. Nivolumab has been approved in the U.S. for melanoma.

While the breakthrough is significant these therapies will be very expensive and will pose a challenge for health services trying to deliver them to patients already in financial hardship.

China Puts Artillery On Disputed Islands In Latest Show Of Aggression

Entertainment News

Tensions got higher in the Pacific on Friday as U.S. defense officials said they have detected artillery on artificial islands being illegally built by China, in what has been described as a “disturbing and escalatory” development in the dispute.

The U.S. military is understood to have made the discovery a few weeks ago. Defense called on China this week for land reclamation in the disputed region to be brought to an immediate end, as Defense Secretary Ashton pushed China and other countries near the sea to reach a peaceful solution to the conflict.

Republican Senator John McCain, chairman of the Senate’s Armed Services Committee, said of the discovery:

“It is a disturbing development and escalatory development, one which heightens our need to make the Chinese understand that their actions are in violation of international law and their actions are going to be condemned by everyone in the world.”

“We are not going to have a conflict with China but we can take certain measures which will be a disincentive to China to continue these kinds of activities,” he said.

The dispute has angered the whole region. The U.S. has not been directly involved, but has stood to support allies who have repeatedly called on the U.S. Navy to help protect their territorial waters from Chinese aggression.

China’s reasoning for reclaiming the islands remains a mystery. It could be an effort to provide a diversionary war, should the there be a popular uprising against China’s corrupt communist party. It’s also possible the output is there to enable illegal Chinese fishing, which we covered recently, that remains a scourge of international waters. Chinese has depleted its own supply of fish through over-fishing and must now steal fish from its neighbors.

All The Photos You Upload To Google’s New Photos App Can Be Used By Google

News

Google’s new Photos app is a service that wants to “organize your memories.” But what Anil Sabharwal, head of Google Photos, didn’t tell you on Thursday is that all the photos you upload to Google’s service can be used by Google for marketing and promotion.

The slimy detail is buried in the app’s lengthy Terms of Service, which most people will not be familiar with. It’s written in legalese and is buried far off the path to install the app.

The clause buried in the terms means Google reserves the rights to use anything you decided to upload for both marketing and other, vague, purposes. Given Google’s record on privacy abuse that’s a big unknown.

The clause reads:

When you upload, submit, store, send or receive content to or through our Services, you give Google (and those we work with) a worldwide license to use, host, store, reproduce, modify, create derivative works (such as those resulting from translations, adaptations or other changes we make so that your content works better with our Services), communicate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute such content. The rights you grant in this license are for the limited purpose of operating, promoting, and improving our Services, and to develop new ones.

The new service is looking to build a massive archive of data as it allows users to push huge collections of pictures onto the service.

But what constitutes “prompting and improving” the service? As Yahoo showed earlier this week, techn companies play fast and loose with your privacy and their ‘improvement’ could very well be your privacy invasion.

This type of sliminess needs to stop from mammoth tech giants like Google, who should know better. They should tell users in plain English what they will and won’t use their data for and provide specific examples.

Peer To Peer Lending Could Be The Next Financial Bubble

News

The $77 billion Peer to Peer (P2P) lending market is expanding exponentially thanks to Wall Street’s efforts to securitize the loans. It’s the same risky practice that led to the Great Financial Crisis, where poor quality mortgages were issued and then sold on to unsuspecting investors who later realized the losses when people couldn’t pay the loans.

P2P lending seems to be embarking down this dangerous path, allowing borrowers struggling with high-interest credit card debt to refinance via loans from individual lenders. The net effect of the transactions is transforming credit card debt into unsecured personal loans. Which are then sold to investors, who may not be aware of the precise credit quality of the very stretched borrowers.

It also presents a scenario where borrowers could subsequently max out the credit cards they just paid off.

Transferring credit risk from large financial institutions to private lenders, means it isn’t entirely clear what the implications of that shift might eventually be, especially if the market continues to grow at its present pace.

After all, using a relatively low-interest P2P loan to pay off a high-interest credit card isn’t any different than using a new credit card that comes with a teaser rate to pay off an old credit card.

Borrowers who do this often max out the old card again and thus end up with twice the original amount of debt. They then get other cards and repeat the process, accumulating huge amounts of debt that eventually must be paid off.

But the dangers get worse because of perverse incentives created by securitizing the debt and selling it to retail investors. As demand for these asset backed loans grows, it causes lenders to lower their underwriting standards.

That’s exactly what led to the housing crisis.

Proof of this can be seen from the industry’s number-one player, LendingClub, which is presently advertising to “pre-approved” borrowers that they can get up to $35,000 with “no collateral required.”

It’s clear that Wall Street’s securitization machine needs to be fed which means the race to the bottom is on. Its now a race to see who can recruit the most under-qualified borrowers.

We’re sure this will not end well.

World’s Safest Drug Dealer Sentenced To Life In Jail

News

The man who allegedly ran Silk Road, the world’s largest yet safest drug marketplace, has been given life in jail. Ross Ulbricht, found guilty of narcotics conspiracy and other charges earlier this year, received the harshest possible sentence possible in a case that exposes the absurdity of the U.S. war on drugs.

The charges were a result of Ulbricht’s alleged management of the Silk Road, which ran as a Tor Hidden Service and accepted anonymous Bitcoin payments to create a marketplace for drugs and other goods.

In October 2013, at the time it was shut down, Silk Road was the largest marketplace of its kind. Law enforcement officials estimate that the Silk Road handled as much as $200 million in drug transactions, a figure that seemed to play prominently in today’s sentencing decision.

And yet what the government is hiding, as we detailed extensively here, is that Silk Road was also the safest drug marketplace that has ever operated in the United States. The site featured a registered doctor who was paid by Ulbricht to give advise about dosage, drug interactions and addiction treatment options to the site’s users.

Unlike street corner peddlers, who often mix dangerous chemicals into their products that alone can kill people, Silk Road sought to ensure drugs were as advertised and that medical help was available to any and all who needed it.

So while the prosecution focused on how many people died as a result of Silk Road drugs – just five in total – it is likely that relative to the large volume of sales many more lives were saved by providing medical advise and drug verification.

The ending to Ulbricht’s story is like so many other victim’s of the United States’ war on drugs: A bright young man with the ability to contribute to society in spite of his crimes will now spend the rest of his days rotting in jail.

NSA Tracking Americans By How They Swipe And Type

News

While the theater over the NSA’s spying continues in Congress, under the grand illusion that a piece of legislation will stop the agency, the spooks at the NSA are now tracking people based on the way they swipe their smartphone screen.

The new technology can identify you from the way your finger swipe strokes and text on a smartphone screen, according to Lockheed Martin who designed the identification technology on the agency’s behalf.

Such links to the military indsutrial complex show just how powerful the forces in favor of spying are: Spying is big business for defense contractors. With massive ‘black’ budgets that do not face scrutiny, defense contractors like Lockheed can get lucrative contracts with little oversight. This means they have every reason to push for more illegal spying on the American people.

John Mears, a senior Lockheed IT and Security Solutions executive, told NextGov that Lockheed Martin called the technology a “secure gesture authentication as a technique for using smartphones.”

‘Authentication’ also mean ‘identification’. If the agency has access to your phone, which it does, it can build a fingerprint of the actual user of the phone.

The sneaky identification technology, dubbed “Mandrake,” analyses the curve, unique speed and acceleration of a person’s finger strokes across their smartphone’s touchscreen.

“Nobody else has the same strokes,” Mears stated. “People can forge your handwriting in two dimensions, but they couldn’t forge it in three or four dimensions.”

“Three is the pressure you put in, also to the two dimensions on the paper. The fourth dimension is time. The most advanced handwriting-type authentication tracks you in four dimensions.”

The agency initially played with smartphone-swipe recognition technology in an attempt to move past passwords and have something more secure.

But the NSA is not commenting on how exactly it is using the new technology though Mears did confirm that NSA is actively deploying the technology right now. That means it is already part of its global surveillance program to spy on innocent people.

Combined with the latest revelation that the agency planned to hijack Google and Samsung app stores, which we covered here, to infect smartphones with Spyware, such technology would be the perfect compliment to determine who is actually using the phone rather than just who owns it.

Residents Flee As Japanese Volcano Unexpectedly Erupts

Culture

Residents fled the sparsely populated Kuchinoerabu Island on Friday morning as a dormant volcano unexpectedly erupted, sending smoke and ash soaring into the sky.

Mount Shindake, the island’s main peak, produced a plume over six miles high and a flow of lava that reached the shoreline, Japan’s Meteorological Agency said.

There was no warning whatsoever of the eruption.

“I heard a loud boom and when I looked at the mountains, I saw a gigantic plume rising above,” said a 64-year-old innkeeper who was in her garden at the time.

“I thought I’d be dead if I got caught in the cloud,” she said explaining why she ran to the shelter without any belongings. “There was an eruption last year, but this time the sound was really loud.”

All residents have been evacuated by ferry, coast guard ship and helicopter to neighboring Yakushima Island by Friday evening, and all were safe according to the Yakushima town office.

“I have instructed the relevant personnel to do all they can to ensure the safety of the islanders,” Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said to reporters.

North Korean Rocket Complex Getting Significant Upgrade

Entertainment News

A U.S. research institute announced Thursday that North Korea’s main rocket launch site is undergoing significant new construction, according to satellite imagery. The upgrades are a sign of leader Kim Jong Un’s determination to pursue a space program despite severe international sanctions.

Under UN Security Council resolutions North Korea is barred from launching rockets because if it can launch a rocket it can launch a weaponized ballistic missile.

Kim, who’s grip on power is under threat from many parties within the hermit kingdom, declared this month that its rocket program “can never be abandoned.”

The upgrades to the Sohae launch site on its west coast have been ongoing since 2013, after its its first rocket was launched into space in December 2012.

Since an upgrade completed last year to accommodate larger rockets, satellite imagery shows North Korea has been working on a support building and what looks to be a movable platform to allow a fully assembled rocket to be shifted on tracks to the launch pad.

The U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, author of the new report, says that the facilities closely resemble those used in China, the North’s neighbor, though there is no publicly available evidence to suggest Chinese involvement.

It remains highly probable that China is assisting the North, as the communist state is notoriously open to doing business with human rights violators and other shunned members of the international community for the sake of a few dollars.

“The Sohae facility upgrade program represents a significant investment of financial, material and personnel resources and is another indicator, along with its public statements, that North Korea is determined to pursue its space program,” read the research report.

In South Korea on Wednesday, nuclear envoys from South Korea, the United States and Japan agreed to increase pressure on North Korea in response to increasing belligerence from the despotic country.

The hermit kingdom’s unpredictable leader, Kim, has championed the space program. In May, Kim inspected a new satellite control and command center and was quoted as saying the North would launch satellites into space.

The North’s space program is notoriously poor, with a 2012 launch lifting a satellite into space that soon tumbled out of control in orbit.

It is believed that North Korea will mark the 70th anniversary of the ruling Korean Workers Party with a rocket launch.

While Kim and his cronies play with rockets, his people starve amid tough sanctions and rampant graft and corruption by top officials. Kim, along with the top members in the government and military routinely squander what little foreign currency reserves the country has on luxury good and food items including high end alcohol and caviar.

SEC To Allow All Americans To Invest Directly In Startups

News

The SEC has passed historic regulations that will allow everyday Americans to invest in startups for the first time ever. Previously only rich investors were permitted to take part, limiting the opportunities available to retail investors in a world where fewer companies are raising funds on the public markets, the only allowable venue for retail investors.

The streamlined securities registration process is being called “Reg A+,” and it will change the landscape not only for startups but also for film financing and other creative projects.

The new rules permit investment offerings to the general public starting on June 19th, so long as a long list of requirements are met.

Until now, the everyday Americans has been giving away millions of dollars to startup companies on sites like Kickstarter, but only in pre-sales of actual products. Investing directly in the companies has thus far been prohibited.

This means that crowdfunded darlings that have gone on to sell for billions have provided no reward to the initial public funders.

Reg A+ is interesting for two reasons.

First, it allows equity investments in early stage companies which helps both startup companies and retail investors. This means a new asset class for investors and a new, competitive source of capital for American businesses.

Secondly, it also provides a new source of funding for creative projects like movies and TV shows. This could disrupt Hollywood studios as well as see more content created that the public wants to see – think controversial documentaries or fan favorite shows that have been cancelled because studios don’t want to take a risk.

The specific rules of the new regulations are as follows, according to TheHollywoodReporter:

➻ The offering cannot exceed $50 million within a 12-month period.

➻ The investors cannot invest more than 10 percent of the greater of (a) their annual income or (b) their net worth (excluding their home).

➻ The company making the offering (the “issuer”) has to complete a lengthy document containing detailed information in a format required by the SEC (“Form 1-A”). This document then has to be submitted and approved by the SEC before accepting any investors.

➻ The individuals involved in the offering (the “promoters”) cannot have been found guilty by a court or administrative agency of violation of securities or certain other laws.

➻ The offering material must accurately state all material facts.

➻ The issuer must file audited financials with the Form 1-A and must file follow-up reporting to the SEC with audited financial statements for at least one year (and annually if it has more than 300 investors).

➻ The promoters cannot directly sell their own interests in the issuer in excess of the lesser of (a) 30 percent of the offering or (b) $15 million.

➻ The issuer must use a registered transfer agent to record ownership and transfers by investors.

➻ The issuer does not have to comply with state securities laws (other than filing fees), which is a huge advantage compared to the impossible aggravation of having to comply with myriad conflicting state securities laws.

➻ The issuer is permitted to advertise the offering, including using social media.

➻ The issuer is allowed to “test the waters” by sending out general marketing materials as long as it doesn’t accept any investors before delivering the SEC-approved Form 1-A.

➻ The issuer can accept investment from all investors, not just “accredited investors” (meeting certain net worth requirements), and with no limit on the number of investors.

➻ The issuer can raise investments on a crowdfunding website. For example, IndieCrowdFunder.com provides all the required forms and handles filing them with the SEC as well.

U.S. Army Finds Another Batch Of Live Anthrax As Scandal Worsens

News

The Army’s anthrax mishandling scandal continues to widen, as we first suspected, as another batch of live anthrax has been discovered. The new batch is genetically the same as the live samples sent to Australia from the Army’s Dugway Proving Grounds in Utah.

A new revelation is that defense officials are beginning to explain just how the mishap happened. According to an interview with NBC, defense officials believed that the anthrax spores had been irradiated to kill them in 2008.

Experts confirm that it is very difficult to inactivate a large batch of anthrax spores and that this is a persistent problem across U.S. labs. While the The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says no member of the public is in danger, people potentially exposed to the anthrax spores are taking antibiotics.

The news is troubling because defense officials have continually downplayed the incident, despite daily updates that it continues to be worse than originally suspected. It appears that the government departments are not fully informing American citizens the true danger the Army has put people in.

Additional details on the incident are likely the emerge in the coming days and we will keep readers updated on the latest developments.

U.S. Drops Cuba From List Of State Sponsors Of Terrorism

News

The U.S. moved closer to complete normalization with the tiny island of Cuba this morning, after the State Department announced that Cuba has officially been dropped from a list of state sponsors of terrorism.

“The rescission of Cuba’s designation as a State Sponsor of Terrorism reflects our assessment that Cuba meets the statutory criteria for rescission,” the department said in a written statement. “While the United States has significant concerns and disagreements with a wide range of Cuba’s policies and actions, these fall outside the criteria relevant to the rescission of a State Sponsor of Terrorism designation.”

The move is the latest in a series of action to restore ties to the socialist country that lies just 70 miles off the coast of Florida. Last month President Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro met for the first head of state dialog in 54 years.

In an interview last month, President Obama said that the change in the relationship with Cuba is “a real opportunity” for both countries.

“Our hope is to be in a position where we can open an embassy there — that we can start having more regular contacts and consultations around a whole host of issues, some of which we have interests in common,” the president told Steve Inskeep.

By removing Cuba from the list of state terrorism sponsors some sanctions placed on the coutnry are automatically removed, a crucial step in normalizing relations. The country still has other sanctions which must be manually lifted by Congress.

Google’s New Products Highlight Huge Problems With Apple’s Software

Finance

Yesterday Google announced a big update to its Google Now product, which will add contextualized information to every app on your phone. For example if Spotify is playing a song, simple asking your phone what the artists real name is will product an accurate result. No need for flipping apps and typing stuff into a web search.

Its the latest upgrade to Google Now, the company’s voice search product that has been light years ahead of Apple’s cute talking yet not very functional voice assistant Siri.

The reason Google is so far ahead is that the computing horsepower behind Google Now is vastly superior to Apple’s Siri, both in terms of ability to handle complex tasks and how, exactly, the software is interpreting what is being said.

Google’s product is a learning, near-living, piece of software that relies on super complex ‘neural network’ learning algorithms to try and understand what a user is saying and in what context. Siri is a primitive list of basic commands mapped to actions.

The latest addition to Google’s Now product comes thanks to its $500 million acquisition of artificial intelligence specialist DeepMind. The new version of Now will understand what context you’re speaking in when asking your phone to do something rather than you having to explicitly tell your phone where you are. While Google Now knows, Apple’s Siri just does what its told with no real thinking going on behind the scenes.

Apple clearly feels threatened by this development, enough so that it was compelled to ‘leak’ a story to insider blog 9to5Mac that it, too, is developing a competitor to Google Now.

The system is codenamed “Proactive,” and will leverage the company’s suite of iOS apps, including Siri, Contacts, Calendar and Passbook, as well as other apps, to provide timely information based on how they use their devices.

Google Now has had similar features for nearly three years, highlighting that Apple lacks the technical skills to put together a world beating artificial intelligence project on its iDevices. Apple is, after all, a design company not a tech company.

Worryingly the new app is supposed to include an augmented reality component, where users can take a picture of something in real life and have the phone provide information about it, tying into its lackluster Maps application.

Sounds good in theory but augmented reality is hard. Just ask Color, the once hyped augmented reality app that was supposed to do just that but instead fizzled into oblivion due to the immense technical challenges of figuring out exactly where you are and what you’re looking at. The software works fine for obvious places, say looking at the Statue of Liberty, but is ineffective if you were say looking at a relatively unknown piece of art and wanted to know about the artist. There’s just too many items in the world right now to catalog, even with the immense computing power of today’s cutting edge data centers.

Apple’s messaging in the leak says the new app will react to a person’s app usage, so if a person opens Facebook when they wake up in the morning, Proactive will note that usage and provide a widget in the morning for that user to quickly get into Facebook.

The Google engineers are no doubt laughing about this in Mountain View. Such a ‘proactive’ feature amounts to machine learning 101.

If Proactive is announced as the marquee feature of iOS9, to be announced next month, Apple users and investors should be scared.

Such simple artificial intelligence based on the already terrible Apple Maps product means that Apple’s software is three to four generations behind Google’s.

In short, Apple has a huge software problem on its hands.

Australian Prime Minister Doesn’t Think Kids Should Learn About Computers

News

Ultra conservative Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott doesn’t think kids should learn computers. In an embarrassing blunder he even ridiculed his own government’s investment in technology education, showing yet again how the people who make laws are not at all in touch with modern technology.

This disconnect, which we’ve covered before, results in laws that don’t properly consider technology that we must then live with for decades. By not understanding technology lawmakers are unable to create laws and policies that work in the modern age.

The embarrassing gaffe happened late Wednesday, when opposition Labor leader Bill Shorten asked the Prime Minister whether he supported coding being taught in every primary and secondary school.

“Let’s just understand exactly what the Leader of the Opposition has asked,” the Prime Minister proudly proclaimed. “He said that he wants primary school kids to be taught coding so they can get the jobs of the future. Does he want to send them all out to work at the age of 11? Is that what he wants to do? Seriously?”

Yet his own government has already invested $3.5 million in coding across the curriculum. The program does not make coding compulsory, but will instead develop a suite of resources that support and promote best teaching practices across different year levels, even primary schools. Science and business leaders have been calling for coding to be taught formally in schools for many years now.

Abbott’s misinformed remarks not only highlight how out of touch politicians are with modern technology but underscore America’s need to teach computer skills from a very young age in order to stay competitive. By learning how to write code students form the foundations of computer language which enables them to tell programs how to operate. It also breeds the next generation of computer science engineers, an increasingly large part of the modern workforce.

Russian Billboard Changes Ads If Approached By Police

Entertainment News

In what is either an incredibly interesting or incredibly terrifying development, an ad agency in Russia has designed an outdoor billboard that automatically hides when it spots the police approaching it.

The reason for the invention is because of Russia’s ban on food imported from the European Union and the United States. It began last summer and has hit Russian grocery store Don Giulio Salumeria particularly hard since, as its main business was selling authentic Italian food.

As this is Russia, where the rule of law is weak and few bribes changes everything, it wasn’t hard for the grocery store to continue to import and sell its fine Italian imports. But advertising this to consumers was more difficult so it hired ad agency The 23 to create the high tech billboard.

The computer driven billboard uses a camera and facial recognition software, tweaked to recognize the logos on the uniforms worn by Russian police. If they get too close to the billboard it switches to an ad for Russian nesting dolls instead of imported Italian pasts.

While this is mostly a publicity stunt than actual illicit advertising, given police can clearly see the original advert before the ads switch, it does point to a new future for out of home advertising.

Billboards of the future will recognize passersby and switch ads depending on if you’re male or female, wearing a sports team logo or have a beard. Such advertising could be effective or could very well be super creepy.

Counterfeit Coupon Kingpin Busted By Feds

News

The dark corners of the internet offers lots of illicit things for sale: drugs, weapons, malwar and even counterfeit coupons. The web’s most notorious coupon counterfeiter, known as ThePurpleLotus, is now behind bars after the FBI raided his house on Thursday.

Indicted in the scheme is 30-year old Beauregard Wattigney, of Louisiana, on charges of wire fraud and trademark counterfeiting. He operated on now-busted Dark Web marketplaces Silk Road and Silk Road 2.

Wattigney sold packages of coupons for almost every consumer product imaginable including beauty products, alcohol, cigarettes, video games, cleaning supplies, and consumer electronics. The knock-off coupons offered discounts just as effective as the real thing and were sold in packages that cost customers around $25. Like most underground items on the web, payment was to be made in bitcoin. The $25 packages contained hundreds of dollars in savings.

The FBI said that Wattigney did just shy of $1 million in total damage to the affected companies, who are big name corporations like Proctor and Gamble, Pepsi and Kraft. While scaremonger Jane Beauchamp, president of the fraud consultancy Brand Technologies (who obviously have a vested interest in inflating the total to get more business for themselves), says the damages are “significantly” higher, given the small size of the total possible damage this was more a hobby industry than big business.

For comparison, if the total damage was $1 million in counterfeit coupons, that means sales would have been something close to $100,000. Silk Road’s drug sellers are estimated to have conducted over $2.3 billion in sales during the life of the marketplace.

A big fish this is not.

What it does demonstrate is that coupon fraud remains easy.

“We have the best, most consistent, most precise, most scannable, most accepted, most diverse collection of coupons anywhere. They are not on anyone’s ban list. They are not blacklisted anywhere,” states PurpleLotus’s advertisement on Agora, the largest currently active black market on the Dark Net. “They will save you a ton of money…If you use the coupons for the everyday things that you normally buy, the golden goose will continue to lay golden eggs.”

“Every day new codes get added to the blacklist,” said Beauchamp. But new fake coupons are being made at a faster pace than ever, she says. “The problem is that it’s a blacklist, not a whitelist. And that affects the whole industry.”

The Coupon Information Corporation, which maintains one list of known fraudulent coupons on behalf of the retail industry, counters that other security measures beyond a blacklist exist to combat coupon fraud. But Bud Miller, the president of the CIC, said “if you make a high quality counterfeit coupon, from time to time it can be passed at the cash register. The industry is working on a number of solutions, from better identification, to what we’ve done, to prosecutions.”

Wattigney wouldn’t be the first to be caught faking coupons at large scale. Two years ago, 25-year-old Lucas Henderson was given three years of supervised release and forced to pay $900,000 in restitution for his own coupon fraud scheme. Henderson, a Lubbock, Texas student distributed his self-made coupons through Web forums such as 4Chan.

For American consumers who frequent coupon clipping sites, its important to know the source of the coupon. Trust big, reputable sites and shy away from small, crude looking ones that promise discounts seemingly too good to be true. Also stay away from people offering coupons in private messages or mass emails – these are often fakes and could land you in trouble at the register.

America Is Going Back To Space! NASA Sets Date For First Manned Space Flight Since 2011

News

NASA is getting closer to “returning America’s ability to launch crew missions to the International Space Station from the United States” as it awarded a contract yesterday to aerospace giant Boeing for commercial crew rotation missions to the International Space Station.

The first mission is slated for early 2017.

The contract is part of the Commercial Crew Program, designed to get Americans back into space on American rockets but not have it be a government program.

While the transition from strictly government funding to commercial contract will have taken over six years, during which the United States has relied on Russia for transport to the ISS, it marks the first time in human history that manned spaceflight is available for sale on the commercial market.

It won’t just be Boeing doing launches, either. SpaceX, the Californian rocket startup that’s launched unmanned missions the ISS, is expected to receive its first order later this year.

Boeing and SpaceX will then duke it out to see who can most cheaply and reliably shuttle passengers to and from the space station.

Just because Boeing has won the first contract does not mean it will get the honors of being the world’s first commercial human spaceflight provider. NASA will decide who goes first “at a later time”.

SpaceX has been making waves in the long-stagnant rocket market, recently managing to force its way on to the contractors list for the US Air Force, and successfully testing its capsule for manned missions.

SpaceX being able to launch military satellites doubles the number of groups who could provide commercial surveillance satellite launch services, placing America solidly in the lead for global commercial satellite launches. France and Russia both offer such services on older and more expensive rockets, while China and India have the ability to launch satellites thanks to a government funded space program.

The first crewed mission launched from American soil in American rockets is planned for late 2017, provided that the contractors meet NASA’s “readiness conditions”.

NASA stated that missions to the ISS on Boeing’s Crew Space Transportation CST-100 and SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft will “restore America’s human spaceflight capabilities and increase the amount of scientific research that can be conducted aboard the orbiting laboratory”.

“Final development and certification are top priority for NASA and our commercial providers, but having an eye on the future is equally important to the commercial crew and station programs,” said Kathy Lueders, who is the manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. “Our strategy will result in safe, reliable and cost-effective crew missions.”

“We’re on track to fly in 2017, and this critical milestone moves us another step closer in fully maturing the CST-100 design,” said John Mulholland, Boeing’s VP of commercial programs. “Our integrated and measured approach to spacecraft design ensures quality performance, technical excellence and early risk mitigation.”

The crewed missions to the ISS will carry four crew members and approximately 220 pounds of cargo. The capsules will remain at the station for up to 210 days and serve as an emergency lifeboat during that time, should the astronauts need to flee the station for some reason.

Each contract that NASA awards is for a minimum of two and a maximum of six missions.

“Commercial Crew launches are critical to the International Space Station program because it ensures multiple ways of getting crews to orbit,” said Julie Robinson, NASA’s International Space Station chief scientist. “It also will give us crew return capability, so we can increase the crew to seven, letting us complete a backlog of hands-on critical research that has been building up due to heavy demand for the National Laboratory.”

Indictment Of Former House Speaker Exposes Deep Rot In D.C.

News

Robert Menendez isn’t the only prominent politician engaged in corruption as word broke last night that former House Speaker Dennis Hastert has been indicted by Federal officials for lying to the FBI about a $3.5 million payment to an undisclosed subject in order to “cover up past misconduct.”

The allegations were unsealed in the District Court of Northern Illinois late Thursday.

AS ever in D.C. there is already a cover-up, as the indictment does not explain what the “past misconduct” is or what actually happened, other than saying that Hastert made large withdrawals after agreeing to pay the money.

From what we can tell it seems like it is a case of bribery, pure and simple.

The indictment paints a murky picture of money flowing back and forth between the former Speaker and the unidentified subject, with payments to the Speaker’s benefit totaling about $1.7 million beginning in 2010 and ending in 2014.

That’s more money than the average American will see in a lifetime and speaks to the flagrant attitude in Washington towards bribery, influence peddling and the outright selling of votes.

Hastert, 73, isn’t just some low level first-term politician – he served as House speaker from 1999 until 2007, when Democrats retook the House!

His misconduct shows just how deeply the culture of graft and corruption permeates our nation’s political system. After all, if its rotten at the top its more than likely rotten to the core – top to bottom.

Politicians, predictably, feigned shock at the allegations, with Sen. Ben Cardin saying “I think we’re all surprised by this.”

It’s saddening to think just how much damage the corruption of Hastert, and most of our politicians in office, does to our country. Hastert served in the Illinois House of Representatives until 1986, was then elected to Illinois’ 14th congressional district and in 1999 was elected speaker of the House. He was the longest serving Republican speaker in history.

So imagine what kind of dirty dealings he did during that long tenure. The FBI reports are likely just the tip of the iceberg and were business as usual for the highly-influential official.

But it gets better – in 2008 he joined the Washington lobbying firm Dickstein Shapiro as a senior adviser.

I short, Hastert has made a career out of selling our democracy to the highest bidder. How many others like him lurk in D.C.? Our guess – it’d be easier to count those not on the take.

Tesla’s Solar Revolution Will Require Houses To Be Completely Re-Wired

News

Tesla’s newly announced batteries promise to revolutionize the solar industry by allowing homeowners to store power from one part of the day, when it is plentiful, and use it in another part, when it is needed.

This solar revolution is already in full swing all across the nation and consumers are enamored with “going off the grid.” In order to meet the objective homeowners are counting on home batteries to be the next, very key, phase of their off-the-grid plans. It isn’t just high profile Tesla that’s leading the way, either. RoseWater Energy Group and a host of other companies are rapidly developing these new power storage devices for homes.

But according to industry expert Paul Self of Buildz.com, if the battery power trend really takes off, it will require that homes be equipped with more low voltage wiring than line voltage electrical, the standard in all homes presently.

Why? Because

An underlying issue with solar power and the Tesla battery is the fact that they run on DC while the power infrastructure in buildings is AC. Stepping power up and down from AC to DC and vice-versa wastes energy, about 20 percent is lost in the conversion. Some converters do a better job than others, but resolving this 20 percent loss is very important when working on a battery stored energy supply.

The inefficiency, a pure science limitations of AC/DC conversion, will eventually force a gigantic sea change from builders, electricians and the National Electric Code itself in the way homes are constructed and wired. Absent such a change battery tech will remain nothing more than a ‘nice to have’ and not a replacement for grid delivered power.

It’s not far-fetched to think this could happen, as many devices, such as almost all non-incandescent light bulbs, computers, TVs, cable boxes, and cell phone chargers all can run on DC and actually currently require a transformer to step the 110 VAC down to a DC signal.

Appliances like electric water heaters, electric ovens, and air conditioners will still require 110VAC, but most of the house can move to DC without much fuss and with a ton of energy savings. Every device that runs with a converter is wasting power switching from one signal to the other. In a solar powered house this is happening twice, making it a very inefficient process.

But the change needed to convert America’s homes will not happen overnight. It won’t be easy to phase out all the legacy devices requiring 110V.

But until that happens consumers won’t be fully taking advantage of the Tesla battery and solar power.

Google Launches Stealth Attack On Facebook With Free Unlimited High Res Photo Storage App

Finance

In a clever attack on privacy invading Facebook, Google announced on Thursday a new dedicated Photos app for Android, iOS and the web. It had hinted at this repeatedly over the past month but its launch today is a sneaky effort to undermine Facebook.

Facebook only exists because of the ability to share photos. Strip photos from the social network and there is no Facebook. As Instagram began to become the preferred method with teens to share pictures, Facebook had no choice but to snap it up in order to maintain its monopoly on photo sharing.

Yet Google’s attempts to get it the game have been clumsy. Google+, its own social network, is widely regarded as a failure. Nobody uses it and social isn’t really in the search company’s DNA.

Google’s newly released Photos plays to this culture, while also filling a gap in the market – people are increasingly distrusting Facebook for its invasion of privacy. They also don’t particularly want world+dog to see all their life moments.

The new Photos app addresses this, allowing you to both back up your photos and also share them with select friends as you see fit. No bulk privacy settings needed, you can control exactly who has access to what. It also connects with the company’s excellent machine learning algorithms, allowing users to search for content based on activity, person and place. This is something Facebook is extremely poor at, as it lacks the intellectual capital to pull off such ambitious and technical projects.

Best of all, the update attacks what Facebook has always been: a free repository for you photos. The updated app will allow for free, unlimited storage of high-resolution photos up to 16MP, and videos up to 1080p.

This is one of the more clever products Google has released on the consumer software front – it’s both useful and also deeply disruptive to Facebook.

Iran Recently Showed North Koreans Nuclear Facility Three Times Despite U.S. Nuke Deal Talks

Entertainment News

Fresh reports have emerged that Iran is not just looking to develop nuclear weapons but that its interested in selling them to other rogue nations, including highly provocative and increasingly unstable North Korea.

According to reports released Thursday a team of North Korean nuclear warhead and ballistic missile specialist visited a military base in Iran at the end of April, not even three weeks after President Barack Obama’s announcement of a framework agreement with Iran over its nuclear program. The report was released by an Iranian dissident group with sources inside the Islamic nation.

The group, named The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), detailed that a seven member delegation from North Korea’s army visited Iran during the last week of April, the third time they visited Iran this year alone.

“The delegates included nuclear experts, nuclear warhead experts and experts in various elements of ballistic missiles including guidance systems,” the NCRI said.

The NCRI has sources in Iran, even inside the elite Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps.

“Tehran has shown no interest in giving up its drive to nuclear weapons,” NCRI spokesman Shahin Gobadi warned.

The NCRI sources indicated that the North Korean delegation was taken in secret to the Imam Khomenei complex, a site controlled by the Defense Ministry, east of Tehran. The group provided detailed accounts of locations and who the officials met in order to substantiate their claims.

The units the delegation visited are under United States sanctions. The facility researches and manufactures interior parts of nuclear warheads, sophisticated technology the Koreans may not be able to currently produce.

The NCRI is a credible source, having exposed Iran’s once clandestine uranium enrichment facility at Natanz as well as the heavy water plant at Arak.

While Iran helps the North Koreans acquire weapons of mass destruction, the U.S. and allies are hurrying to meet a June 30th deadline to reach a comprehensive agrement over Iran’s nuclear program.

Secretary of State John Kerry is will meet Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif on Saturday and it seems likely the North Koreans will be on the agenda.

Fifteen Chinese Nationals Charged In Huge College Entrance Exam Fraud Scheme

News

The U.S. Department of Justice said on Thursday that it has charged fifteen Chinese nationals with paying impostors to take college entrance exams, including the SAT. The illegal test takers gained acceptance to elite American colleges and universities as a result of the scheme.

Genius students were paid up to $600 each time they used counterfeit Chinese passports to trick testing facilities into thinking they were the student who would apply to college with the test score, according to a federal grand jury indictment.

The scheme was perpetrated during 2011 and 2015, mainly in western Pennsylvania.

Authorities are charging both the test takers and the people they claimed to be.

U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania David Hickton said students snuck into what are “among our finest educational institutions.”

Hickton would not name the specific schools, but said that they are located across the United States.

A more serious concern is that the counterfeit Chinese passports were used to cheat student visa requirements. Expired student visas allowed the 9/11 hijackers to remain in the country and learn to fly the ill-fated planes that hit the twin towers.

“These students were not only cheating their way into the university, they were also cheating their way through our nation’s immigration system,” said John Kelleghan, Special Agent in Charge for Homeland Security Investigations of Philadelphia.

The students face a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, a fine of $250,000 or both for each count of wire and mail fraud. Conspiracy charges carry an additional five-year maximum sentence.

Armed Bikers To Hold Muhammad Cartoon Contest Outside Phoenix Mosque Today

News

The battle with radical Islam, which seeks to degrade society into a medieval theocracy, heated up on Thursday after a group of bikers announced they will hold a Muhammad cartoon-drawing contest outside a Phoenix-area mosque on Friday.

As a result of the last cartoon drawing contest in Texas they’re going to come armed in case of a “much-anticipated attack.”

Jon Ritzheimer, the contest organizer who is a Marine turned anti-Islam activist, has invited thousands of bikers to join him outside the Islamic Community Center of Phoenix for a “peaceful protest” and Muhammad cartoon contest, timed specifically to take place on the Muslim day of prayer.

Over 200 people have RSVP’d, although locals and Muslim civil liberties groups are concerned there may be violence.

The rally has been dubbed “round 2” according to its Facebook event page. Ritzheimer says the contest “is in response to the recent attack in Texas where 2 armed terrorist, with ties to ISIS, attempted Jihad.”

Ritzheimer wants attendees to bring American flags and to “utilize there [sic] second amendment right at this event just in case our first amendment comes under the much anticipated attack.” The event will occur when the mosque “normally hosts a large prayer.”

“Round 2” is in reference to the May 3rd attack on activist Pamela Geller’s “Muhammad Art Exhibit and Contest” in Garland, Texas, where a police officer was shot and two armed assailants killed as they attempted to shoot up the event. The attack was claimed by ISIS although the perpetrators were likely radical Muslims influenced by the group yet not assisted or directed by the terror organization.

The men responsible for the Texas attack were from the Phoenix area. One of the men studied at the Islamic Center for years, causing speculation there could be a radical element that is tolerated inside the organization.

The protests show America is losing patience with radical religious groups, who are trying to force their radical view on America’s hard won democracy and its associated rights and freedoms.

Google Is Now A Major Player In Television

Finance

At Google’s annual developer conference yesterday, Google I/O, Sundar Pichai, the most senior Google executive to actually speak with the public, revealed a stunning fact.
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Google has sold 17 million Chromecast devices to customers around the world. Pichai added that Chromecast’s cast button has been pressed more than 1.5 billion times by users.

This may not seem like much but it lays the foundation for something big.

Chromecast is a very small USB stick that plugs into connected television sets. Most flat panel TVs out there support it. It’s cheap and easy to use.

Its original purpose was to allow people to easily connect their laptops and smartphones to their TVs in order to watch Youtube videos. A cute and sometimes handy use case, but hardly anything that will shake up the pecking order of TV.

But Chromecast is a foot in the door for Big G. Android, Google’s phone operating system, dominates the industry. And if you have an Android phone its easy for it talk to Chromecast.

This means Google is just one app away from launching an all out assault on the TV industry. Download the app and watch whatever content Google has arranged on your big screen TV.

This is likely the future. Phones are becoming so powerful developers and users are having trouble figuring out what to do with them. Running TV app is easy for most modern smartphones and provides a better user experience than a big box, such as Apple’s Apple TV.

You bring your shows, movies and Youtube channels with you and Chromecast them to whatever TV you happen to be around. You also, conveniently, have them all on your phone for when you’re taking the bus and sitting on the train.

Expect Google to keep promoting Chromecast while it arranges the content for a game changing TV service, which will likely launch sometime in 2016. In the meantime, it will continue to quietly lay the groundwork for this disruptive technology with the innocuous looking Chromecast.

SEC Hires Goldman Banker To Regulate His Former Employer. Again.

Finance

The SEC proudly announced on Thursday what is perhaps the first ever double revolving door in SEC history: It has had hired a former Goldman worker as its new chief of staff, who before Goldman had previously worked at… the SEC. We literally can’t make this stuff up.

According to the SEC:

The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that Andrew J. “Buddy” Donohue has been named the agency’s chief of staff. Mr. Donohue will replace Lona Nallengara who will leave the agency in June.
As chief of staff, Mr. Donohue will be a senior adviser to the Chair on all policy, management, and regulatory issues.

SEC Chair Mary Jo White, in the usual scripted announcement, said “I am thrilled that Buddy will be returning to the SEC to provide his extensive knowledge and expertise to the agency,”

“Buddy is a seasoned professional whose previous SEC and private sector experience will be invaluable in advancing all aspects of the agency’s mission. His deep knowledge of asset management will be especially useful as the Commission advances its rulemaking agenda for addressing potential risks in asset management and considers a uniform fiduciary standard.”

But what’s troubling is that Mr. Donohue has been managing director, associate general counsel, and investment company general counsel at Goldman, Sachs & Co, a bank with a deep criminal history that has, through massive political connection, avoided prosecution despite stealing billions from American taxpayers through a variety of sophisticated criminal schemes.

Donohue is the latest in a long line of Goldmanites to leave the firm in order to advance its agenda.

His appointment raises a serious question: Can he possibly regulate his former employer with his blatantly obvious conflict of interest? Can he even avoid leaking SEC secrets to powerful old friends who made him filthy rich?

We doubt very much he can.

YouTube Is Going To Support Virtual Reality Videos By End Of Summer

Finance

As we covered previously, 2016 is poised to be the year of virtual reality. Big players, like Facebook, Conde Nast, Sony and Samsung are all lining to jump head first into the virtual reality arena.

Conde Nast will begin publishing 3d content, from magazines to documentaries while Sony will launch a headset for its Playstation video game console to improve the immersiveness of it games. Facebook, through is $2 billion acquisition of Occulus, is even rumored to be working on 3d living rooms, where rather than chat with friends you sit around in a virtual living room and watch the game.

Google, evidently, isn’t going to be left in the cold.

At it’s I/O developer conference today the company announce Jump, a program to help publishers create 3d content. Jump provides software and tools to allow video publishers to create 3d versions of their content to be viewed with devices made by Occulus, Sony or Samsung.

It’s even partnered with GoPro, the action sports camera maker, to create a 3d video rig for self filmed content.

Jump will be supported by Google’s YouTube, which will allow publishers to not only create 3d videos but also host them somewhere for the world to see.

Jump is expected to launch in the fall, just in time for all the virtual reality headset rigs to be hitting the market.

In typical Google style it will be free.

Researcher Tricks World Into Believing Eating Chocolate Makes You Lose Weight

News

Be careful about what you read on the internet – even supposed studies in supposedly peer reviewed journals can be manipulated, according to, well, new research.

Case in point in the viral diet that claims chocolate helps you lose weight. There’s just one problem: Despite the cited study being in scientific journals, it’s based on terrible science. On purpose.

The craze hit the internet with a press release on March 29th stating “Can you indulge your sweet tooth and lose weight at the same time? If it’s chocolate you crave, then the answer seems to be: yes.” claimed lead author ‘Johannes Bohannon’, with the title of research director of the nonprofit Institute of Diet and Health. “Just lowering the proportion of carbohydrates is not a reliable weight loss intervention because it has different physiological effects depending on the bioactive compounds in your diet.”

While losing weight due to increased chocolate consumption seemed too good to be true, it was, after all based on science.

But despite seemingly rigorous scientific protocol the whole exercise was a sham, designed to raise awareness about for-profit scientific journals accepting and publishing junk science.

The reality is that Johannes Bohannon was actually John Bohannon, a journalist, while the study was commissioned by German TV producers making a show about the junk-science used in the diet industry. The Institute of Diet and Health was a website but nothing more.

Yet the study, which had only 15 participants, 18 different measurements, and examined weight, cholesterol, sodium, blood protein levels “was, in fact, a fairly typical study for the field of diet research,” said Bohannon “Which is to say: It was terrible science. The results are meaningless.”

“Other than those fibs, the study was 100% authentic,” he writes of his exposé.

The junk science and with an appealing conclusion got headlines in the Daily Mail, Huffington Post, Business Insider, Daily Express and was even on the front page of the German tabloid Bild, known for its reliable reporting.

The outcome of the stunt highlights two key issues.

The first is that many industries use junk science to sell products or advance agendas. From weed killer to tobacco to diet to exercise, new marketing methods often include junk science to back up sales pitches or pushes for regulatory changes. We must be critical, then, of claims which seem too good to be true or which clearly advance a specific agenda.

The second, and more troublesome, is the move towards pay-to-play scientific journals. Such journals are well funded and attracting record readership yet they simply do not properly vet the research that appears in them.

Traditional scientific journals specifically do not charge money for submissions and subject them to a barrage of scrutiny from researchers in particular fields. Such journals truly advance science and control the quality of scientific work that makes it to press. Paid journals do not, which highlights a stunning flaw in our academic system.

The Dutch Have Had Enough, Ban Muslim Veils In Public Places

Entertainment News

As radical Islam taints the entire religion with terror, rape and violence, citizens of civilized countries are starting to push back, realizing that excessive religious tolerance is amounting to regression back towards middle ages social policies and customs.

The latest country to push back is the Netherlands, where the Dutch cabinet approved a proposal to ban face-covering Islamic veils on public transportation and in public areas such as schools and hospitals.

Dutch interior minister, Ronald Plasterk, said in a statement on Friday that: “Face-covering clothing will in future not be accepted in education and healthcare institutions, government buildings and on public transport.”

The ban would not apply to wearing veils, know as the burqa or the niqab, on streets. It would only apply for security reasons or “in specific situations where it is essential for people to be seen”, the Dutch prime minister, Mark Rutte, told reports.

While claiming that “the bill does not have any religious background,” it represents increasing frustration with a religion that is intent on pulling all countries of the world back into the middle ages, where clerics rule and personal rights are foregone on religious grounds.

The government said it “tried to find a balance between people’s freedom to wear the clothes they want and the importance of mutual and recognizable communication”. It further stated that the cabinet “sees no reason for a general ban that would apply to all public places”.

A previous bill sought to ban face-covering veils on the street, but that will now be withdrawn.

The new bill was drawn up by a coalition of parties across the political spectrum in the country.

Those villating the ban could be fined up to €405 or about $450.