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The Naked Truth About Scanners
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The Naked Truth About Scanners
Politico
“It’s not an explosive detector; it’s an anomaly detector,” Clark Ervin, who runs the Homeland Security Program at the Aspen Institute, told the Post. “Someone has to notice that there’s something out of order.”
Which means those security employees who stare at the screens have to be sharp enough and well-trained enough to detect things that are abnormal. (And some experts think that if the explosives are flat and pancake-shaped and taped to your stomach, they could not be detected anyway, because the picture would look too normal.)
The machines cost $130,000 to $170,000 each, and by 2014, the federal government will have spent $234 million to $300 million for them.
Which would be a bargain if they actually did something besides embarrass people. In May, a TSA screener at Miami International Airport who went through a full-body screening as part of his training was arrested for beating a co-worker with a police baton after co-workers made fun of the size of his private parts.
The solution for passengers? Get used to it.
Janet Napolitano, the secretary of homeland security, was interviewed Sunday by CNN’s Candy Crowley, and Napolitano said nothing was going to change “for the foreseeable future.”
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Arizona Congressman Assaulted and Tied Up on Christmas is Speaking Out (Video)
Amplify’d from www.hapblog.com
Arizona Congressman Assaulted and Tied Up on Christmas is Speaking Out (Video)
PRATT: "I'm gonna get over it, I'll be back"
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Concerned Women for America Pull Out of CPAC because of the invitation of the gay activists group GOProud
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Family Research Council, Concerned Women for America Pull Out of CPAC Conference
worldnetdailyTwo of the nation's premier moral issues organizations, the Family Research Council and Concerned Women for America, are refusing to attend the Conservative Political Action Conference in February because a homosexual activist group, GOProud, has been invited.
"We've been very involved in CPAC for over a decade and have managed a couple of popular sessions. However, we will no longer be involved with CPAC because of the organization's financial mismanagement and movement away from conservative principles," said Tom McClusky, senior vice president for FRC Action.
"CWA has decided not to participate in part because of GOProud," CWA President Penny Nance told WND.
FRC and CWA join the American Principles Project, American Values, Capital Research Center, the Center for Military Readiness, Liberty Counsel, and the National Organization for Marriage in withdrawing from CPAC. In November, APP organized a boycott of CPAC over the participation of GOProud.
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Exposure to illegal activity not harmful, judge decides
Amplify’d from www.onenewsnow.com
Following a contrary ruling in a custody case, a Utah judge is allowing children to visit their father in his polygamous community.
Joseph Compton and his wife divorced last year when he refused to stop dating a woman who was interested in becoming his second wife. Another judge previously barred the 50-year-old from taking his eight children to the 800-member polygamous community and talking to them about his fundamentalist beliefs, as the magistrate decided the exposure would entail "unnecessary and harmful conflict" with the children's monogamous upbringing. But Matt Barber of Liberty Counsel finds Fourth District Judge James Brady's latest ruling to be unsettling.
"The fact that this judge said that this will not significantly harm his children is really shocking," he notes. "But it isn't surprising, based on the fact that the polygamist activist community is basically following the playbook right out of the homosexual activist community."
Barber has warned many times on OneNewsNow that once homosexuals succeed in destroying traditional marriage, the next step is legalized polygamy. He points out that if the father were an illegal drug addict who surrounded himself with other addicts, the ruling of this custody case might have been different.
"The judge seems to think that the kids will not be harmed by exposure to this illegal activity," the Liberty Counsel attorney laments. "Polygamy is still illegal, and it is demonstrably harmful to children in that it basically removes the moral standards that every major world religion and thousands of years of history have held in place -- and that is that marriage is between one man and one woman."
So Barber concludes that "the judge is buying into and embracing a sexual relativist worldview that is commonplace in our pop culture today."
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NC Council of Churches to be led by open homosexual
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RALEIGH, NC - The North Carolina Council of Churches has elected an openly homosexual man as its incoming president.
The council selected 55-year-old Stan Kimer, a lay leader in the Metropolitan Community Churches -- a denomination that ministers to homosexual men and women.
The council's executive director, the Rev. George Reed, says this is the first time a southern state church council has been led by an openly homosexual person.
The state branch of the Southern Baptist Convention does not belong to the North Carolina Council of churches, but North Carolina's Roman Catholic dioceses are members. The council promotes left-leaning legislative goals on policies including immigration, guns, and the death penalty. Kimer, a retired IBM sales executive, says he wants young people more involved in inter-church activism.
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The economy and lower teen birth rates
Reason: Probably Vaccinations, sure isn't morals!
Amplify’d from www.onenewsnow.com
The Centers for Disease Control says the birth rate among teenagers in the U.S. fell to a record low in 2009, the most recent year for which statistics are available. Some people are attributing the decline to the recession.
The Wall Street Journal quotes Sarah Brown, chief executive of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy. "They see parents who have lost jobs or houses," said Brown. "They're very aware of how tough it is now, and I think that causes teens to be more cautious."
Valerie Huber of the National Abstinence Education Association, however, says that argument is "totally illogical."
"The economy really has little to do with [teens'] ability to be self-sufficient when they're still in school, dependent on mom and dad, and don't have much income coming in [during] good or bad times," she offers.
The abstinence advocate offers a different take on the new stats, saying they show that the abstinence message is working. "When you take that, together with the trends in prevalence of other sexual behaviors, it shows us very clearly that abstinence as a lifestyle for teens is having a real effect," says Huber, "and [that] they're not just listening to this message, but they're making it a part of their teen life."
Birth rates among teens of all ages, races, and ethnic groups also hit record lows in 2009.
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Principals of Defunct Hedge Fund Indicted for $30 Million International Fraud Scheme
Amplify’d from atlanta.fbi.gov
ATLANTA, GA—THOMAS REPKE, 57, of Salt Lake City, Utah, was arraigned today before a U.S. Magistrate Judge in Atlanta on multiple counts of mail fraud, wire fraud and conspiracy, relating to his operation of the Utah-based investment company, “Coadum Capital.” REPKE was indicted on December 15, 2010, along with an alleged accomplice, JAMES JEFFERY, 58, of Belleville, Ontario, Canada. JEFFERY has not yet made his initial appearance on these charges.
United States Attorney Sally Quillian Yates said, “This indictment alleges a major international investment fraud scheme that defrauded over 100 victims around the country out of tens of millions of dollars, most of which has been transferred to overseas accounts. Those who prey on the investing public in this way will continue to find themselves facing federal felony charges.”
According to United States Attorney Yates, the charges and other information presented in court: REPKE and JEFFERY operated Coadum Capital in 2006 and 2007, which at its height attracted over 100 investors and over $30 million in investments. Coadum offered shares in hedge funds and advertised monthly returns of 5 percent. Part of the sales pitch that Coadum made to investors was that their funds would remain protected in an escrow account and would therefore not be at risk. For example, several investors were provided marketing materials which read, “Cash Deposit ALWAYS remains in escrow in your name,” and “Cash Depositor's principal deposit NEVER at risk.”
REPKE and JEFFERY also allegedly described the investments in monthly account statements sent to investors as “Principal Preserved Alternative Investments for Growth Oriented Clients,” and these account statements reported the investors’ “Ending Principal Balance in Escrow Account.” The monthly account statements also stated a purported rate of interest or earnings that had been earned by the fund that month, which was generally between 3-5 percent.
The indictment in this case alleges that, in fact, although investors were instructed to and did transmit much of their funds to one or more supposed “escrow” accounts, including one in Atlanta, the money did not stay in any such account. Rather, unbeknownst to investors, REPKE and JEFFERY transferred over $20 million overseas to accounts in Switzerland and the Mediterranean island of Malta. This money was supposedly invested in a series of hedge funds or other investments operated by a supposed Malta-based trader. The indictment alleges that these investments produced no earnings at all, and, in fact, by the end of 2007 only a fraction of the transferred funds remained deposited in these European accounts.
The indictment alleges that REPKE and JEFFERY continued to send account statements every month to investors continuing to represent that their funds remained intact, preserved in escrow accounts, and that monthly earnings of 3-5 percent continued to accrue. REPKE and JEFFERY knew these statements were false, because they knew the funds were not protected in escrow accounts, and to the contrary, had been transferred overseas to accounts over which REPKE and JEFFERY had no control and about which they received little or no information. REPKE and JEFFERY received no information from the supposed European trader to suggest that returns of 3-5 percent a month were being achieved. To the contrary, the defendants’ correspondence shows that they were frustrated in their repeated requests to obtain information about where the funds were being held, how they were being used by the trader, and whether and to what extent earnings were being generated.
The indictment alleges that through 2007, REPKE and JEFFERY generally honored requests by investors for distributions of supposed earnings that the investors had been told existed. This was one of the methods the defendants allegedly used to give Coadum the appearance of a legitimate, profitable fund. However, because Coadum had received little or no earnings from its investments during this period, REPKE and JEFFERY were only able to make these payments by diverting newly invested funds from other investors. The investors were not told that newly-invested monies, and not actual “earnings,” were a principal source of the distributions they received.
The indictment alleges that investors lost approximately $30 million with Coadum.
The indictment charges 22 counts of mail fraud, wire fraud and conspiracy. The charges carry a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000 each. In determining the actual sentence, the Court will consider the United States Sentencing Guidelines, which are not binding but provide appropriate sentencing ranges for most offenders.
Members of the public are reminded that the indictment contains only allegations. A defendant is presumed innocent of the charges and it will be the government's burden to prove a defendant's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt at trial.
This law enforcement action has been undertaken as part of President Barack Obama's Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force.
President Obama established the interagency Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force to wage an aggressive, coordinated and proactive effort to investigate and prosecute financial crimes. The task force includes representatives from a broad range of federal agencies, regulatory authorities, inspectors general, and state and local law enforcement who, working together, bring to bear a powerful array of criminal and civil enforcement resources. The task force is working to improve efforts across the federal executive branch, and with state and local partners, to investigate and prosecute significant financial crimes, ensure just and effective punishment for those who perpetrate financial crimes, combat discrimination in the lending and financial markets, and recover proceeds for victims of financial crimes.
This case is being investigated by Special Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. United States Attorney Yates also thanked the staff of the Atlanta Division Office of the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”), which referred the matter for criminal investigation.
Assistant United States Attorneys Justin S. Anand and Alana R. Black are prosecuting the case.
For further information please contact Sally Q. Yates, United States Attorney, or Charysse L. Alexander, Executive Assistant United States Attorney, through Patrick Crosby, Public Affairs Officer, U.S. Attorney's Office, at (404) 581-6016. The Internet address for the HomePage for the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Georgia is www.justice.gov/usao/gan.
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