All minuses, no pluses in crude oil train shipments

~ susie ~ 3 Comments

Oil Train Halted by Tripod Blockade Action- Rising Tide Seattle

No one really gives a shit about ordinary people’s concerns anymore:

(Reuters) – For the past 18 months, Americans from Albany to Oregon have voiced growing alarm over the rising number of oil-laden freight trains coursing through their cities, a trend they fear is endangering public safety.

In at least a handful of places, the public is also helping fund it.

States and the federal government have handed out tens of millions in public dollars to rail companies and government agencies to expand crude oil rail transportation across the country, a Reuters analysis has found.

The public assistance in states like New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Oklahoma and Oregon comes as railroads are posting record profits, and as state and federal authorities press for safety overhauls that the oil and rail industries have opposed, following several explosive derailments.
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Microsoft to the U.S.: You’re not the boss of our overseas servers

~ susie ~ 2 Comments

Microsoft Headquarters

Yep. Microsoft and other cloud services are furious that U.S. surveillance is ruining their overseas business:

Microsoft’s fight against the US position that it may search its overseas servers with a valid US warrant is getting nasty.

Microsoft, which is fighting a US warrant that it hand over e-mail to the US from its Ireland servers, wants the Obama administration to ponder a scenario where the “shoe is on the other foot.”

“Imagine this scenario. Officers of the local Stadtpolizei investigating a suspected leak to the press descend on Deutsche Bank headquarters in Frankfurt, Germany,” Microsoft said. “They serve a warrant to seize a bundle of private letters that a New York Times reporter is storing in a safe deposit box at a Deutsche Bank USA branch in Manhattan. The bank complies by ordering the New York branch manager to open the reporter’s box with a master key, rummage through it, and fax the private letters to the Stadtpolizei.”

In a Monday legal filing with the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals, Microsoft added that the US government would be outraged.

“This case presents a digital version of the same scenario, but the shoe is on the other foot,” the Redmond, Washington-based company said in its opening brief in a closely watched appeal.

The appeal is of a July court decision demanding that Microsoft hand over e-mail stored on an overseas server as part of a US drug trafficking investigation. Microsoft, which often stores e-mail on servers closest to the account holder, said the e-mail is protected by “Irish and European privacy laws.”

But a US judge didn’t agree. “It is a question of control, not a question of the location of that information,” US District Judge Loretta Preska ruled. The order from the New York judge was stayed pending appeal.

High school according to the Kochs

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No Koch in Schools

What could possibly be wrong with allowing high-spending right-wing billionaires to dictate what’s taught to high school kids?

Public high school students in North Carolina will be taught from a lesson plans and worksheets prepared by a organization closely tied to the billionaire Koch brothers, if the state’s Department of Public Instruction gets its way. According to the Raleigh News and Observer, the Virginia-based Bill of Rights Institute received a “$100,000, sole-source contract with [North Carolina] to help develop materials for teachers to use in a course on founding principles that the state requires students to take.”

The N&O also notes that the organization receives funding directly from David Koch and from two Koch family foundations, although, if anything, this description understates the Institute’s ties to the conservative billionaires. Two of the Institutes four board members are employed by Koch entities — one is a senior vice president at Koch Industries and another is director of higher education programs at the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation — and many of the Institute’s other top leaders also appear likely to push a political agenda in line with the Koch brothers’ anti-government views. Board member Todd Zywicki, is a George Mason law professor and a leading opponent of Wall Street reforms such as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The Institute’s president, David J. Bobb, founded two centers at Hillsdale College, a conservative institution of higher education that proclaims its opposition to “the dehumanizing, discriminatory trend of so called ‘social justice’ and ‘multicultural diversity.’”
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A perfectly fine idea

~ susie ~ 2 Comments

gunz

Of course, Massachusetts has the most educated population in the country, while Texas is, well, Texas:

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Long depicted as the rootin’-tootin’ capital of American gun culture, Texas is one of the few states with an outright ban on the open carry of handguns.

That could change in 2015, with the Republican-dominated Legislature and Gov.-elect Greg Abbott expected to push for expanded gun rights.

“If open carry is good enough for Massachusetts, it’s good enough for the state of Texas,” Abbott said the day after his election last month.

And if Texas, which allows concealed handguns, embraces open carry — rolling back a 140-year ban — it would be the largest state to have done so.

Hostage taking in Sydney

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

Woman runs to the arms of a NSW, Tactical Operations Unit (TOU) Officer, after escaping from an ongoing hostage situation in Sydney's CBD. - xpost from /r/policeporn [650x488]

Not a whole lot you can do to prevent individual acts like this:

SYDNEY — A gunmen took dozens of patrons hostage at a busy Sydney café on Monday morning, using some of the captives as human shields and forcing others to hold a black flag with white Arabic writing against the window.

The drama transfixed the normally calm Sydney, known for its laid-back vibe and relaxed population. By Monday night, five hostages had escaped and the Central Business District was virtually deserted.
The incident began during the morning rush hour, when a man with a gun entered the Lindt chocolate and coffee shop at Martin Place, a major transportation hub typically teeming with professionals and tourists. Authorities have declined to say how many hostages are inside, but no one has been injured, according to Police commissioner Andrew Scipione.

Authorities have been in contact with the gunman who has made a number of demands apparently including the right to speak to Prime Minister Tony Abbott. Local media have reported that he also requested an Islamic State flag. Earlier in the day hostages were seen with their hands up, pressed against the window while holding a flag that read: ”There is no God but God and Mohammed is the prophet of God.”