(Bloomberg)May 18th, 2013
FBI searches apartment in ricin letter case
Posted by: Kim Stallings
Published on May 18th, 2013 @ 09:51:03 pm , using 384 words
Published on May 18th, 2013 @ 09:51:03 pm , using 384 words
Posted in Events and Issues: Credible Resources
Fox News via AP
Authorities in hazardous materials suits searched a downtown Spokane apartment Saturday, investigating the recent discovery of a pair of letters containing the deadly poison ricin.
Few details have been released in the case, and no arrests have been made. Federal investigators have been searching for the person who sent the letters, which were postmarked Tuesday in Spokane.
The letters were addressed to the downtown post office and the adjacent federal building, but authorities have not released a potential motive. They also have not said whether the letters targeted anyone in particular.
Ricin is a highly toxic substance made from castor beans. As little as 500 micrograms, the size of the head of a pin, can kill an adult if inhaled or ingested.
There have been no reports of illness connected to the letters.
FBI agents, Spokane police and U.S. Postal Service inspectors descended on the three-story apartment building Saturday morning and the investigation continued into the afternoon.
FBI spokeswoman Ayn Sandalo Dietrich would not say whether agents were questioning anyone in connection with the case.
"We are not actively looking for a subject," Sandalo Dietrich said. "We are not asking the public's help in bringing someone in."
Despite the hazmat suits, officials said apartment residents were not at risk, and people were seen coming in and out of the brick building in the city's historic Browne's Addition neighborhood.
"There's no public risk," Sandalo Dietrich said.
Sandalo Dietrich would not say specifically why the FBI was searching the apartment.
"Information we developed led us to believe this was a productive spot to search," she said.
Two letters containing the substance were intercepted at the downtown Spokane post office Tuesday.
The Postal Service has received no other reports of similar letters, said Jeremy Leder of the Postal Inspection Service on Saturday.
In a statement following the discovery, the Postal Service said the "crude form of the ricin suggests that it does not present a health risk to U.S. Postal Service personnel or to others who may have come in contact with the letter."
The Spokane investigation comes a month after letters containing ricin were addressed to President Barack Obama, a U.S. senator and a Mississippi judge. A Mississippi man has been arrested in that case.
PermalinkMay 18th, 2013
North Korea, still bucking up, fires short-range missiles off east coast
Posted by: Kim Stallings
Published on May 18th, 2013 @ 09:34:22 pm , using 502 words
Published on May 18th, 2013 @ 09:34:22 pm , using 502 words
Posted in Events and Issues: Credible Resources
The Los Angeles Times / By Barbara Demick
BEIJING — North Korea fired three short-range missiles off its east coast Saturday, following through on months of threats to conduct a missile launch.
The South Korean Defense Ministry reported that it detected two launches in the morning and another in the afternoon. Its initial assessment was that the missiles were short-range surface-to-ship or surface-to-surface missiles capable of traveling up to 72 miles, rather than the new medium-range Musudan missile that analysts fear could threaten U.S. troops in Guam or Okinawa, Japan.
"All missiles launched fell into the sea," a South Korean Defense Ministry official was quoted as telling the country's official Yonhap news service. He also speculated that the launches, directed over water northeast of North Korea, were part of a military exercise.
Short-range missile tests by North Korea are quite common, the last one having taken place about two months ago. Firing off the missiles Saturday might have been a face-saving move by the government in Pyongyang, under intense international scrutiny over its next move, an analyst said.
"By launching the short-range missile the North wouldn't provoke countries surrounding them, but can tell its people that they have carried out a serious threat against the U.S.," said Cheong Seong-chang, an analyst at South Korea's Sejong Institute.
North Korea had been threatening for months to test-fire its Musudan missile, which it had installed on a launcher on the east coast. But two of the missiles — as yet untested — were taken away this month without explanation. The Musudan is believed to have a range of up to 2,400 miles.
In Washington, National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said:
"We've seen the reports. North Korea will achieve nothing by threats or provocations, which only further isolate [it] and undermine international efforts to ensure peace and stability in northeast Asia.
"We continue to urge the North Korean leadership to heed President Obama's call to choose the path of peace and come into compliance with its international obligations."
Relations between North Korea and the United States have been particularly tense in recent months. Pyongyang launched a long-range missile carrying a satellite in December, and followed with a test of a nuclear weapon in February.
The U.S. responded by successfully seeking fresh United Nations sanctions against the government, winning the support of even North Korea's longtime ally, China.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has been threatening for months to take some provocative action in retaliation for the sanctions and subsequent joint military exercises carried out by the U.S. and South Korea.
Though Washington has focused on the threat of North Korea developing a long- or medium-range missile capable of someday carrying a nuclear warhead to U.S.-controlled territory, the short-range missiles and estimated 8,000 artillery systems in the nation's arsenal are no small matter for South Korea. Seoul, the South Korean capital, is only 30 miles from the nation's border with the North, which has the world's fifth-largest army, with 1.1 million soldiers.
Untouched water as old as 2.6 billion years is found: Don't drink it
May 18th, 2013
Obama Reassures America in Weekly Address: "I Have Played No Role Whatsoever in US Government"
Posted by: Barry Secrest
Published on May 18th, 2013 @ 08:43:39 pm , using 228 words
Published on May 18th, 2013 @ 08:43:39 pm , using 228 words
Posted in Events and Issues: Credible Resources
The New Yorker
President Obama used his weekly radio address on Saturday to reassure the American people that he has “played no role whatsoever” in the U.S. government over the past four years.
“Right now, many of you are angry at the government, and no one is angrier than I am,” he said. “Quite frankly, I am glad that I have had no involvement in such an organization.”
The President’s outrage only increased, he said, when he “recently became aware of a part of that government called the Department of Justice.”
“The more I learn about the activities of these individuals, the more certain I am that I would not want to be associated with them,” he said. “They sound like bad news.”
Mr. Obama closed his address by indicating that beginning next week he would enforce what he called a “zero tolerance policy on governing.”
“If I find that any members of my Administration have had any intimate knowledge of, or involvement in, the workings of the United States government, they will be dealt with accordingly,” he said.
Note: The Borowitz report is a weekly "political satire" column in the New Yorker
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May 18th, 2013
Socialist France Taxed Over 8,000 French Households at 100 Percent of Income in 2012
Posted by: Barry Secrest
Published on May 18th, 2013 @ 08:22:34 pm , using 240 words
Published on May 18th, 2013 @ 08:22:34 pm , using 240 words
Posted in Events and Issues: Credible Resources
Reuters (Paris) More than 8,000 French households' tax bills topped 100 percent of their income last year, the business newspaper Les Echos reported on Saturday, citing Finance Ministry data. The newspaper said that the exceptionally high level of taxation was due to a one-off levy last year on 2011 incomes for households with assets of more than 1.3 million euros ($1.67 million). President Francois Hollande's Socialist government imposed the tax surcharge last year, shortly after taking office, to offset the impact of a rebate scheme created by its conservative predecessor to cap an individual's overall taxation at 50 percent of income. The government has been forced to redraft a proposed bill to levy a temporary 75 percent tax on earnings over 1 million euros, which had been one of Hollande's campaign pledges. The Constitutional Council has judged such a high rate of taxation to be unfair, leaving the government to rehash it to hit companies rather than individuals. Since then, a top administrative court has determined that a marginal tax rate higher than 66.66 percent on a single household risked being considered as confiscatory by the council. Les Echos reported that nearly 12,000 households paid taxes last year worth more than 75 percent of their 2011 revenues due to the exceptional levy. ($1 = 0.7798 euros) (Reporting by Leigh Thomas, Editing by Mark Trevelyan)
May 18th, 2013
CNN Host Piers Morgan Admits Gun Advocates May Be Right:"This is Vaguely Tyrannical Behaviour"
Posted by: Barry Secrest
Published on May 18th, 2013 @ 11:51:49 am , using 417 words
Published on May 18th, 2013 @ 11:51:49 am , using 417 words
Posted in Events and Issues: Credible Resources
WND
Is British CNN host Piers Morgan finally admitting gun advocates have a point when they say the Second Amendment is to protect citizens from tyrannical government?
Morgan has made headlines for many months as he loudly trumpeted the cause of gun control, even to the detriment of his shows ratings.
Since the Sandy Hook massacre last year – in which Adam Lanza shot and killed 20 students and six adults at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn. – Morgan has made advocating for gun-control legislation a frequent topic of his program, clashing with former House Speaker Newt Gingrich or rocker and National Rifle Association board member Ted Nugent, for example, and calling Gun Owners of America’s Larry Pratt “an unbelievably stupid man” for disagreeing with him.
Following reports of his vitriolic attacks, a petition was started on the White House “We the People” website demanding Morgan be deported back to England – and it now has more than 109,000 signatures.
As WND reported, despite his avid criticism of guns, Morgan protects his own personal property with signs warning that it is guarded by “Armed Response Security Systems,” according to a recent investigation by self-described “guerrilla journalist” James O’Keefe.
And on March 11, Morgan insisted that, “people need the nanny state occasionally.”
Now – after learning of the Obama administration’s involvement in the IRS’ targeting of conservative groups and its secret seizure of Associated Press phone records – the CNN host admitted to guest Penn Jillette that perhaps gun advocates were right about creeping tyranny after all:
“I’ve had some of the pro-gun lobbyists on here, saying to me, ‘Well, the reason we need to be armed is because of tyranny from our own government,’ and I’ve always laughed at them,” Morgan said. “I said, ‘Don’t be ridiculous! Your government won’t turn itself on you. …
“But, actually, this is vaguely tyrannical behavior by the American government.”
He continued, “I think what the IRS did is bordering on tyrannical behavior. I think what the Department of Justice has done to the AP is bordering on tyrannical behavior.”
Jillette agreed with Morgan, stating, “There’s no doubt about that. Once you use the word ‘bordering,’ that’s true.
“I also think that it shows you that how much we can trust the government and just sit back– which is not very much at all. We have to be ever vigilant.”
More from WND"S Chelsea Schilling
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