Author Archives: Bart Gibson

Britain’s NSA Is Listening to Your Phone Calls

by Bart Gibson Posted on June 23, 2013

Mother Jones

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Yesterday, the Guardian revealed that GCHQ, Britain’s version of the NSA, has been running a program called Tempora that taps fiber optic cables coming into the country. GCHQ claims that Tempora gathers more metadata than any NSA program, and provides access to 600 million “telephone events” each day:

The Americans were given guidelines for its use, but were told in legal briefings by GCHQ lawyers: “We have a light oversight regime compared with the US”. When it came to judging the necessity and proportionality of what they were allowed to look for, would-be American users were told it was “your call”.

….”The criteria are security, terror, organised crime. And economic well-being.”….The categories of material have included fraud, drug trafficking and terrorism, but the criteria at any one time are secret and are not subject to any public debate….An indication of how broad the dragnet can be was laid bare in advice from GCHQ’s lawyers, who said it would be impossible to list the total number of people targeted because “this would be an infinite list which we couldn’t manage”.

As far as I know, it’s still an open question whether NSA does the same thing with fiber optic cables that make landfall in the U.S. Obviously NSA would like to. The fact that we dedicate an entire submarine to tapping underseas cables makes this pretty obvious. But I don’t think anyone has ever produced any firm documentary evidence one way or the other.

I’m busy with other work today, so I don’t have time to write anything lengthy about this. But I missed posting about it yesterday, so I wanted to make sure to get to it today.

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Britain’s NSA Is Listening to Your Phone Calls

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The Canary Islands Government Allowed "Fast & Furious 6" To Destroy Their Highway With a Tank

by Bart Gibson Posted on May 24, 2013

Mother Jones

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Fast & Furious 6
Universal Pictures
130 minutes

Hands down, Fast & Furious 6 is by far the best movie ever made to feature Ludacris and Tyrese trapped in a Jeep dangling inches off the ground from an imperiled cargo plane.

And there is so, so much more to cherish about the film.

The Fast & Furious franchise has become genuinely fascinating over the last couple of years. One of the most fascinating things about the series is the addition of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson as the ultra-brawny Diplomatic Security Service agent Luke Hobbs, a character who seemingly cannot go ten minutes without torturing somebody for information. Another fascinating thing is that after a long stretch of churning out barely passable B-movies, the series somehow managed to produce critically acclaimed entertainment, starting with 2011’s Fast Five. (The sixth film has received similarly high marks.) Credit for the newfound critic-and-crowd-pleasing goes to Taiwanese-born American filmmaker Justin Lin, who initially demonstrated the full extent of his directorial talents with the stereotype-subverting independent film Better Luck Tomorrow in 2002.

But the single most fascinating thing about the series so far is the enormous tank in Fast & Furious 6. The tank is arguably the main character in the movie.

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The Canary Islands Government Allowed "Fast & Furious 6" To Destroy Their Highway With a Tank

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It’s Time for the EPA to Bypass Congress and Regulate Carbon Emissions On Its Own

by Bart Gibson Posted on May 7, 2013

Mother Jones

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David Roberts writes today to praise a new proposal from the National Resources Defense Council for reducing carbon emissions from electric plants. The key part of NRDC’s plan is that instead of setting targets for individual plants, something that creates nearly insurmountable problems, EPA would set targets for entire states:

Here’s how it would work: the EPA would first tally up the share of electricity generated by coal and gas-fired plants in each state during the baseline years (2008-2010 was used for this analysis). Then the agency would set a target emission rate for each state for 2020, based on the state’s baseline share of coal and gas generation.

….Each covered plant with an emission rate above the state standard could meet the standard by using one or more compliance options: First, a plant could reduce its own CO2 emission rate by retrofitting a more efficient boiler or installing CO2 capture systems….Second, the owners of multiple power plants could average the emissions rates of their plants, meeting the required emission rate on average by running coal plants less often, and ramping up generation from natural gas plants or renewable sources instead….The plan also allows trading of credits between companies within a state, and across state lines among states that choose to allow it, further lowering the overall costs of compliance.

This is OK, I guess. But I’m confused. If (a) EPA has the authority to set state standards, and (b) maximizing flexibility is a good thing, then why not simply have EPA mandate a national cap-and-trade system? I assume this is a purely political calculation, but I’m not sure I understand it. It’s not as if the usual suspects won’t fight the NRDC’s state-based plan like crazed weasels, and I guarantee that no matter what formula you use, every state in the union will insist that its target is woefully unfair for some reason or another. If your goal is to avoid the political morass of cap-and-trade, I don’t really see how this plan does it.

Besides, if electricity generators have a choice of the NRDC plan vs. national cap-and-trade, I assume they’d pick cap-and-trade. It gives everybody a little more maneuvering room and delivers the same results more efficiently.

In any case, if EPA really does have any serious plans for regulating carbon emissions at existing power plants, they’d better get moving. This kind of thing takes at least four years to get through the regulatory process, and there’s no telling who will be president four years from now. There’s not much time to waste if they want to get something done while Barack Obama is still in the White House.

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It’s Time for the EPA to Bypass Congress and Regulate Carbon Emissions On Its Own

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Quote of the Day: Happy Days Are Here Again

by Bart Gibson Posted on April 13, 2013

Mother Jones

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From Kelly Hamon, who recently bid $47,000 over the asking price to beat out five other buyers for a cream-colored North Hollywood home:

I am going to have to tighten the budget. Maybe not get TV right away — just Netflix.

The backstory here is the return of the housing bubble to Los Angeles:

The once-in-a-lifetime mentality, fueled by a shortage of for-sale homes, is driving the Los Angeles area from recovery to frenzy, according to real estate agents and experts….Out of all homes sold in March, 91% of Redfin’s deals involved a bidding war. And about 10% were investors flipping a property at a profit after buying it just a short time before.

….While cash offers may have proliferated in 2012, this year has ushered in stronger competition in the mortgage market, said Guy Cecala, publisher of Inside Mortgage Finance Publications….Banks are setting their sights on new home buyers by loosening their underwriting standards and accepting lower down payments. Some lenders have even begun offering piggyback loans — which enable buyers to take multiple mortgages to avoid putting any money down, Cecala said.

“It is mostly something that started in the last month or two,” he said. “The good news for borrowers is that they are starting to see looser underwriting, but it is not looser underwriting across the board.”

….Leo Nordine, a real estate agent in Manhattan Beach, said he recently listed a one-bedroom home in South Los Angeles and got 49 offers….”Everybody I know is trying to do flips right now. It’s like the day trading of the 1990s,” Nordine said. “We went straight from Armageddon to speculation; there was nothing in between this time.”

I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about, though. Los Angeles is unique, after all. And things are different this time. Right?

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Quote of the Day: Happy Days Are Here Again

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Creative Ideas To Build And Operate A Money-making Solar Panel Business

by Bart Gibson Posted on April 3, 2013

Investing your time and efforts into making a successful solar panel installations business can be a very good a way to get some extra cash flow while doing work that you simply want to do on a regular basis. There are tons of major aspects to consider right before you start. Offering you plan a highly spelled out growth strategy and business plan, you will be the leader of a successful growing business in no time. Just remember these guidelines and ways to build your very own powerful business.

Keep track of market trends. It is significant to know what’s selling well and what isn’t so you can offer the most competitive products or services. Continuing to do this will also give you a popularity of always having the best “in” things.

Make some targets and goals in your solar panel installations business whose achievement is necessary. Try to achieve them in a specific time. If your business fails to do so then there is something wrong. Find the problems and remove them so that your business can achieve targeted goals.

It’s important to keep an eye on upcoming obligations and necessary decisions so you can get everything done in a timely manner. You need to make sure deadlines are met every time to ensure nothing goes wrong.

When times get hard, stay motivated. Motivation is energizing and reinforces confidence. Increasing a solar panel installations business involves ups and downs; stay positive and your business will climb up the ladder of success.

Continuously be prepared for the misfortune in the solar panel installations business and ensure that you have a robust idea at such time. It is not a quite major ordeal to have a misfortune in the business yet you should have the ability to recuperate from the misfortune effortlessly.

It is easier than most think to ensure both the efficiency and happiness of employees. If you have them construct a daily report you are able to see the work they produced and how happy they were in producing it. Any indications of dissatisfaction with work will give you an early chance to increase employee happiness.

If your solar panel installations business is large enough, see if you’re eligible to join a group-buying collective. Doing so is a great way to cut costs. Team up with other businesses in your area to consolidate orders from vendors, this way you’ll get a discount and save on shipping costs. The ideal businesses know how to pinch every penny!

The radio is still a nice technique to make information about your solar panel installations business be heard. You can reach hundreds of thousands or even millions of people every day for a small price so it’s definitely worth the cost. It’s up to you to figure out what time of day is best to air your ad though.

Searching for ways to improve your knowledge related to the helpful tips discussed above? Just submit solar panels uk when searching online. You can discover some fantastic helpful tips about solar energy consulting.

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