Usa Thread

[Flashermac]

Congressional members net worth up 3669 percent

 

 

My link

 

 

 

p.s. The board just kicked me out again. I had to log in again.

[Flashermac]

TSA readying new behavior detection plan for airport checkpoints

 

 

The federal government is planning to introduce new behavior detection techniques at airport checkpoints as soon as next month, Transportation Security Administration chief John Pistole said Thursday.

 

TSA already has "behavior detection officers" at 161 airports nationwide looking for travelers exhibiting physiological or psychological signs that a traveler might be a terrorist. However, Pistole said TSA is preparing to move to an approach that employs more conversation with travelers—a method that has been employed with great success in Israel.

 

"I'm very much interested in expanding the behavior detection program, upgrading it if you will, in a way that allows us to….have more interaction with a passsenger just from a discussion which may be able to expedite the physical screening aspects," Pistole said during an appearance at the Aspen Security Forum in Colorado. "So, we’ve looked at what works around the world, some outstanding examples and we are planning to do some new things in the near future here."

 

Pistole declined to elaborate on the enhanced behavior detection program but said it would "probably" be announced in August. During an on-stage interview with CNN's Jeanne Meserve, Pistole acknowledged that the Israeli techniques have been carefully examined.

 

"There's a lot — under that Israeli model — a lot that is done that is obviously very effective," he said. However, critics have said the Israeli program is too time consuming to use consistently at U.S. airports and may involve a degree of religious and racial profiling that would draw controversy in the U.S.

 

Pistole also said TSA is planning to test out some new methods for screening children in the wake of highly-publicized videos of children screaming as they were patted down at airport checkpoints. The TSA chief said adults have used children as suicide bombers before in other contexts and could do so through an airport, but there may still be better ways to screen kids.

 

"I think we can do a different way of screening children that recognizes that the very high likelihood they do not have a bomb on them," Pistole said.

 

"I think under our new protocols we would see very few patdowns of children." Instead, parents would be more involved in the process of helping TSA personnel figure out why a child is setting off alarms.

 

Pistole said adjusting screening for the elderly is more complicated because a large number of people on terrorist watch and enhanced screening lists are older. However, another pilot program is underway underway to identify people who have traveled very frequently for years and who could get an expedited screening.

 

 

My link

[Flashermac]

Where is the fucking delete button?

[Flashermac]

Apple Now Has More Cash Than The U.S. Government

 

 

Here's something to keep in mind as you follow this evening's congressional debate over the debt ceiling.

 

According to the latest daily statement from the U.S. Treasury, the government had an operating cash balance of $73.8 billion at the end of the day yesterday.

 

Apple's last earnings report showed that the company had $76.2 billion in cash and marketable securities at the end of June.

 

In other words, the world's largest tech company has more cash than the world's largest sovereign government.

 

That's because Apple collects more money than it spends, while the U.S. government does not.

[Bangkoktraveler]

Will the cuntry default?

[Hugh_Hoy]

Apple Now Has More Cash Than The U.S. Government

 

 

STEVE JOBS FOR PREZ

[Flashermac]

What Harry Belafonte would ask Congress about the debt crisis

 

 

Singer Harry Belafonte, subject of an upcoming HBO documentary about his political activism, was asked what he would say to the White House and Congress about the gamesmanship in which they are engaged over the national debt.

 

“My question would be, to Congress and the president: What happened to moral truth? What happened to moral courage?†Belafonte said.

 

He’d also like to tell them: “Politics without moral purpose, really more often than not, winds up as tyranny.â€

 

“Barack Obama and his mission has failed because it lacked a certain kind of moral courage, a kind of moral vision ... kind of courage we are in need of,†said the King of Calypso.

 

“When he said ‘Yes, we can,’ it was politically clever, but he never defined what it is we can do. So we filled in those spaces — what we thought he meant — only to find we were disappointed, because none of those points was satisfied.â€

 

 

My link

[Hugh_Hoy]

“When he said ‘Yes, we can,’ it was politically clever, but he never defined what it is we can do. So we filled in those spaces — what we thought he meant — only to find we were disappointed, because none of those points was satisfied.â€

 

 

My link

 

And poor old Harry is surprised? He's a bigger fool than I previously thought. I'm surprised anybody even prints what he says; can't imagined who his audience might be. He is about as current as bongo drums.

 

HH

[Steve]

Hey HH, I thought you'd be happy to hear him criticize Obama. I'd have to guess that he was an Obama supporter. Criticizing someone you voted for (if he did) is, for me at least, a truer barometer of a President's shortcomings. Its tough to remove bias from objectivity if you didn't vote for a guy.

 

Again, my main criticism of him isn't that the things Republicans warned us about his shortcomings came to fruition (inexperience, not the intellectual he seems to be, far left liberal), but that he seems to have become part of the establishment. He was definitely an outsider when he started his campaign. The signs happened after he won Iowa and a couple other primaries. The political winds changed and he was starting to get money from the monied elite power brokers (Wall Street, etc.) and essentially became their man. I think he's governe with that in mind. I'm disappointed in that. I don't think any of the warnings about his shortcomings have happened at all.

[Flashermac]

And poor old Harry is surprised? He's a bigger fool than I previously thought. I'm surprised anybody even prints what he says; can't imagined who his audience might be. He is about as current as bongo drums.

 

HH

 

 

Watcha got against old guys?