The Economy Killing Patriot Act?

By Jamie This is something I never thought of, the stronger hand of our government, at the behest of the Patriot Act, actually hurting us on the tech front. It turns out that is exactly what is happening: Cloud computing is a gold mine for the U.S. tech industry, but American firms are encountering resistance from an unexpected enemy overseas: the PATRIOT Act. The Sept. 11-era law was supposed to help the intelligence community gather data on suspected terrorists. But competitors overseas are using it as a way to discourage foreign countries from signing on with U.S. cloud computing providers like Google and Microsoft: Put your data on a U.S.-based cloud, they warn, and you may just put it in the hands of the U.S. government. READ MORE

Iran military downs US spy drone

An American RQ-170 Sentinel unmanned reconnaissance aircraft (file photo)

A senior Iranian military official says Iran's Army has downed a remote-controlled reconnaissance drone operated by the US military in the eastern part of the country.


The informed source said on Sunday that the Iranian Army's electronic warfare unit successfully targeted the US-built RQ-170 Sentinel stealth aircraft after it crossed into Iranian airspace over the border with neighboring Afghanistan.

He added that the US reconnaissance drone has been seized with minimum damage.

The RQ-170 is an unmanned stealth aircraft designed and developed by the Lockheed Martin Company.
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$7.7 Trillion to Wall Street - Anything to Keep the Banksters Happy!

The new One Bank of America Center in Charlotte, N.C., April 11, 2011. (Photo: Chris Keane / The New York Times)

Thom Hartmann, Truthout: "Do you know who Elizabeth Duke is? How about Donald Kohn or Kevin Warsh? No? Well - you should. Because while Congress was debating back in 2008 whether or not to bailout banksters with a $700 billion blank check - these guys and girls were just doing it. They were funneling $7.7 trillion to Wall Street under the table - without one constituent phone call - without worrying about one election - without having to give one explanation."
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Newt's War on Poor Children

By Charles M. Blow, The New York Times

03 December 11

Newt Gingrich has reached a new low, and that is hard for him to do.

Nearly two weeks after claiming that child labor laws are “truly stupid” and implying that poor children should be put to work as janitors in their schools, he now claims that poor children don’t understand work unless they’re doing something illegal.

On Thursday, at a campaign stop in Iowa, the former House speaker said, “Start with the following two facts: Really poor children in really poor neighborhoods have no habits of working and have nobody around them who works. So they literally have no habit of showing up on Monday. They have no habit of staying all day. They have no habit of ‘I do this and you give me cash’ unless it’s illegal.” (His second “fact” was that every first generational person he knew started work early.)

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US weapons 'full of fake Chinese parts'

08 Nov 2011 Thousands of United States' warplanes, ships and missiles contain fake electronic components from China, leaving them open to malfunction, according to a US Senate committee. The US Senate Armed Services Committee said its researchers had uncovered 1,800 cases in which the Pentagon had been sold electronics that may be counterfeit. In total, the committee said it had found more than a million fake parts had made their way into warplanes such as the Boeing C-17 transport jet and the Lockheed Martin C-130J "Super Hercules". It also found fake components in Boeing's CH-46 Sea Knight helicopter and the Theatre High-Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) missile defence system. READ MORE

Amnesty urges African nations to arrest George Bush

Amnesty International on Thursday urged Ethiopia, Tanzania and Zambia to arrest former US president George W. Bush for violating international torture laws, during his African tour this week.

Bush is touring the countries through to Monday to promote efforts to fight cervical and breast cancers, and Amnesty said the three nations have an obligation to arrest him under international law. READ MORE

Bachmann: Gays 'Can Marry a Woman If They’re a Man'

By David

Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachman says it's fine for a gay man to get married -- as long as it's to a woman.

During a town hall event in Iowa Wednesday, Jane Schmidt, president of Waverly High School Gay-Straign Alliance, asked the candidate why same sex couples couldn't get married.
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