Former US Attorney General Eric Holder is a huge fan of NBA hall of famer Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
So much so that Holder used Abdul-Jabbar’s birth name, Lew Alcindor, as an alias for his official Department of Justice (DOJ) email account, raising more questions about the email practices of top Obama administration officials, and about the ability of US government agencies to track down correspondence in response to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.
The Lew Alcindor revelation was made in a February 16 letter that DOJ sent to VICE News and Ryan Shapiro, a historian and doctoral candidate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who specializes in national security research . . .
The letter was part of about 500 pages of heavily redacted emails and other documents given to VICE News and Shapiro in response to a FOIA lawsuit filed in late 2014. The documents show that Justice Department officials sent emails to Lew Alcindor regarding calls from lawmakers for a federal investigation into claims that CIA personnel spied on Senate staffers while the Senate was drafting a report about the CIA’s torture program. Holder’s name does not appear anywhere in his Lew Alcindor email account. (Read more from “While US Attorney General, Eric Holder Used Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s Birth Name as His Official Email Address” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/maxresdefault-33.jpg7201280Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-02-25 22:34:452016-04-11 10:52:15Why US Attorney General Eric Holder Used Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s Birth Name as His Official Email Address
Photo Credit: Andrezej Wojcicki/Science Photo A huge fireball crashed into the Atlantic earlier this month – and went almost unseen.
The event took place on February 6 at 14:00 UTC when a meteor exploded in the air 620 miles (1,000km) off the coast of Brazil.
It released energy equivalent to 13,000 tons of TNT, which is the same as the energy used in the first atomic weapon that leveled Hiroshima in 1945.
This was the largest event of its type since the February 2013 fireball that exploded over Chelyabinsk, Russia, leaving more than 1,600 people injured . . .
That fireball measured 18 meters across and screamed into Earth’s atmosphere at 41,600 mph. Much of the debris landed in a local lake called Chebarkul. (Read more from “Nasa Reports Huge Explosion of Seven Meter Space Rock Over the Atlantic” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/3175E13700000578-3459057-image-a-10_1456173872483.jpg513634Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-02-22 23:20:242016-04-11 10:52:24NASA Reports Huge Explosion of Seven Meter Space Rock Over the Atlantic
By Susan Page. Retired four-star general Michael Hayden, who as director of the NSA installed and still defends the controversial surveillance program to collect telephone metadata on millions of Americans, says he opposes proposals to force Apple and other tech companies to install “back doors” in digital devices to help law enforcement.
In an emerging court battle over access to information on the iPhone owned by one of the San Bernardino attackers, Hayden says “the burden of proof is on Apple” to show that limited cooperation with investigators would open the door to broader privacy invasions. Apple is being asked not to decrypt information on the smartphone but rather to override the operating system so investigators could try an endless series of passwords to unlock it.
“In this specific case, I’m trending toward the government, but I’ve got to tell you in general I oppose the government’s effort, personified by FBI Director Jim Comey,” Hayden told Capital Download in an interview about his memoir, Playing to the Edge: American Intelligence in the Age of Terror. “Jim would like a back door available to American law enforcement in all devices globally. And, frankly, I think on balance that actually harms American safety and security, even though it might make Jim’s job a bit easier in some specific circumstances.”
In a statement released late Sunday, Comey said the San Bernardino litigation “isn’t about trying to set a precedent or send any kind of message. It is about the victims and justice. Fourteen people were slaughtered and many more had their lives and bodies ruined. We owe them a thorough and professional investigation under law. That’s what this is. The American people should expect nothing less from the FBI.” (Read more from “Ex-NSA Chief Backs Apple on iPhone ‘Back Doors'” HERE)
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Cruz: Apple Should Open San Bernardino Attacker’s Phone
By Ian Hanchett. GOP presidential candidate Texas Senator Sen. Ted Cruz argued that “Apple has the right side on the global don’t make us do this to every iPhone on the market. But I think law enforcement has the better argument” in unlocking the phone used by one of the San Bernardino terrorists during CNN’s Republican Presidential Town Hall on Wednesday . . .
He added, “I think Apple has serious argument that they should not be forced to put a backdoor in every cell phone everyone has. … So I think Apple has the right side on the global don’t make us do this to every iPhone on the market. But I think law enforcement has the better argument, this concerns the phone of one of the San Bernardino hackers. And for law enforcement to get a judicial search order, that’s consistent with the Fourth Amendment. That’s how the Bill of Rights operates, to say Apple, open this phone, not Anderson’s phone, not everyone’s here, open this phone.” (Read more from “Cruz: Apple Should Open San Bernardino Attacker’s Phone” HERE)
A leap year, where an extra day is added to the end of February every four years, is down to the solar system’s disparity with the Gregorian calendar.
A complete orbit of the earth around the sun takes exactly 365.2422 days to complete, but the Gregorian calendar uses 365 days. So leap seconds – and leap years – are added as means of keeping our clocks (and calendars) in sync with the Earth and its seasons . . .
Under his predecessor Julius Caesar, February had 30 days and the month named after him – July – had 31. August had only 29 days.
When Caesar Augustus became Emperor he added two days to ‘his’ month to make August the same as July.
So February lost out to August in the battle of the extra days. (Read more from “Leap Year 2016: Why Does February Have 29 Days Every Four Years?” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/2000px-Junction_29.svg_.png14292000Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-02-21 23:07:482016-04-11 10:52:26Leap Year 2016: Why Does February Have 29 Days Every Four Years?
Netflix isn’t just a binge-watching paradise, but also a powerful tool for saving souls, according to televangelist Ed Young.
Young is one of four Christian pastors to have their sermons added to Netflix’s content library late last year . . .
Young, an evangelical superstar, previously had a program on E! network, in addition to publishing a handful of books and hosting a podcast.
“Jesus said that we should become fishers of men. If I’m going to catch the most fish, I’ve got to put a lot of hooks in the water,” he explained to the Gazette. “But I’m most excited about Netflix right now” . . .
Netflix’s CPO, Neil Hunt, told Business Insider that the company has seen that variations in show preferences within countries are greater than those between countries. That means that though an evangelical Christian show, like Young’s, might only appeal to a certain percentage of the US audience, it could appeal to similar niche communities in different countries throughout the world. (Read more from “Netflix Is Going After a New Market – Evangelical Christians” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/Netflix.jpg6831024Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-02-20 00:34:332016-04-11 10:52:28Netflix Is Going After a New Market – Evangelical Christians
The 2016 race for the White House has seen its ups and down – downs coming mainly from whatever comes out of Hillary Clinton’s and Bernie Sanders’ mouths – but it has also been very entertaining.
Here’s a funny mashup of some candidates making, um, awkward noises…
This is the only video that should be in the time capsule to explain the 2016 presidential election for the aliens. https://t.co/6xN3OwA8d3
Clinton barking like a dog was great. Maybe she’s telling everyone that she needs to be kept outside the White House and not let in! (Read more from “7 Second Video Summing up 2016 Election Is Going SUPER Viral” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/maxresdefault-26.jpg7201280Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-02-17 22:53:292016-04-11 10:52:337 Second Video Summing up 2016 Election Is Going SUPER Viral
Doctors battling to combat cancer have hailed a revolutionary treatment that teaches the body how to kill the disease itself.
Trials of immunotherapy showed remarkable results with 94% of terminal leukaemia patients told they had just months to live going into remission.
And more than half of 40 suffering other blood cancers were left disease-free, according to US researchers.
The treatment could reduce the reliance on chemotherapy, which has debilitating toxic side-effects.
In a second major breakthrough, an Italian study found the therapy could be used to develop a vaccine-style drug that stops the disease coming back after it has been successfully treated. (Read more from “Doctors Battling to Stop Cancer Hail Revolutionary Treatment” HERE)
In recent weeks, many news reports suggest there may be a strong connection between new cases of microcephaly in Brazil and the Zika virus outbreak there. Predictably, pregnant women infected with Zika are being encouraged to abort their babies. However, several health organizations have noticed issues that may point to other factors in the environment being the actual cause of the increase of Brazilian microcephaly.
The first cases of Zika virus in Brazil were confirmed in May 2015 and most likely came from French Polynesia. The Zika virus affected French Polynesia in 2013 through the first part of 2014 and then receded as quickly as it came. During that outbreak, there were at least 17 central nervous system malformations (microcephaly is a type of central nervous system malformation) seen in newborns which may have been related to the virus. Or they may have been due to something entirely different.
Importantly, microcephaly was never identified as one of the 17 malformations in French Polynesia. Researchers are also finding that many other areas that have had Zika virus outbreaks have not seen increases in microcephaly.
The Brazilian Ministry of Health noticed that the increase of microcephaly was occurring around 9 months after the Zika virus outbreak began and hurriedly concluded the two were likely related. However, researcher Dr. Sandra Mattos disagrees. When the outbreak occurred, she had already been collecting data on newborns in the Northeast Brazilian state of Paraiba. Looking back at her data, she discovered the increase of microcephaly had been occurring long before the initial outbreak of the Zika virus. Dr. Mattos believes that pesticides, malnutrition, drugs and infection by multiple viruses at once are the likely causes of the deformity.
Two other Latin American medical organizations believe that the larvicide (pyriproxyfen) – added to drinking water in 2014 – is the likely cause of the increase in microcephaly and other birth defects. Their findings, combined with the research by Dr. Mattos, strongly implicate factors other than the Zika virus as the true causes of increasing cases of microcephaly.
The Ministry of Health of Brazil – and the US Centers for Disease Control – should take note of this research rather than causing unwarranted panic and increasing abortions by suggesting that the rapidly-spreading Zika virus is likely to cause an explosion in birth defects across Latin America and the southern United States.
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/hqdefault-29.jpg360480Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-02-14 23:34:382016-04-11 10:52:40Infected Women Aborting Babies, but Zika Virus Is Likely Not the Cause of Microcephaly
The governor of Hawaii has signed an emergency proclamation regarding Zika and other mosquito-borne illnesses.
Gov. David Ige signed the declaration Friday as “a preventative measure” to guard against Zika, dengue fever and other diseases, his office said in a statement.
The action follows the recent decision by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to take emergency steps to prepare for and mitigate the Zika risk, the statement said.
“There have been no locally acquired Zika cases in the U.S. or Hawaii, and we’d like to keep it that way,” the new release quoted the governor as saying. “This is about getting in front of the situation across the state.” (Read more from “Hawaii Governor Signs Emergency Proclamation on Zika, Other Illnesses” HERE)
Scientists have a new way to predict earthquakes, harnessing the combined power of the world’s smartphones. An app called MyShake is arriving today on the Google Play Store, alongside an accompanying paper in Science Advances. Created by a team of scientists from UC Berkeley, the app turns your phone into a background quake-detector, scanning the phone’s accelerometer data in real time and forwarding any rumblings that fit the profile of seismic activity. With enough phones networked together, researchers hope they can build a kind of distributed seismograph, stitching together thousands of rough readings into a more comprehensive data source than researchers have ever had.
The app takes advantage of the increasingly sensitive accelerometers built into phones, which are sensitive enough to distinguish the distinct profile of an earthquake from the regular jostling of daily life. If enough seismic signals are sent in at the same time, the app will recognize it as the early rumblings of an earthquake and notify the US Geological Survey, which will pass the alarm on to traditional first responders. Notably, those early rumblings will typically come before people in the affected region notice any shaking at all.
A phone will have to be placed on a flat surface for MyShake to work properly, away away from the bumps and shakes of the human body (known to researchers as “anthropogenic noise”). The MyShake team also needs at least 300 such phones in a given 12,000 square-kilometer region. “The real advantage of MyShake seismic network is the density of the stations,” said Qingkai Kong, a doctoral student who worked on the app. “Of course, if we have more phones in one region, it definitely helps.” (Read more from “A New Earthquake Sensing App Just Hit the Google Play Store” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/Haiti_earthquake_damage.jpg20003000Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-02-12 22:08:472016-04-11 10:52:45A New Earthquake Sensing App Just Hit the Google Play Store
