dkf
dkf's JournalAuthorities question Saudi national in Boston attack
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18563_162-57579736/authorities-question-saudi-national-in-boston-attack/(CBS News) Following the twin blasts at the Boston Marathon that has claimed two lives and dozens injured, a Saudi national is being held in custody in relation to the incident who was near the scene of the blast, CBS News correspondent John Miller reported.
Law enforcement sources told Miller a witness saw a person acting suspiciously when the explosions happened along the marathon route.
"They see him running away from the device," said Miller. "Now, a reasonable person would be running away. But this person had noticed him before. This is a civilian -- chases him down, tackles him, turns him over to the Boston police. The individual is being looked at [and] was suffering from burn injury. That means this person was pretty close to wherever this blast went off, but not so close as to suffer the serious injuries that other people did."
Authorities told Miller that the person in custody is not charged and not under arrest. He is being cooperative, answering their questions, and denying involvement. They'll likely be going over this person's communications and examine every aspect of his life, as well as talk to the witness who tackled him to find out what the person of interest did that seemed suspicious.
‘If you are losing faith in human nature, go out and watch a marathon’
Posted by Ezra Klein on April 15, 2013 at 7:11 pm
My wife has been training for a marathon. She leaves the house early in the morning and runs for hours and hours. She comes home tired and sore. And then she does it again. And again. And again.
There’s no reason for her to do it. There’s no competition or payoff or award. It’s just a quiet, solitary triumph over the idea that she couldn’t do it, and it all happens before I even wake up.
In recent months, runner’s magazines have begun appearing on our coffee table. One includes an article from Tish Hamilton. “The Boston Marathon,” she writes. “Even the nonfaithful know that it is the holy-grail accomplishment, the one that marks a runner as ‘serious.’”
The finish line at a marathon is a small marvel of fellowship. Everyone is there to celebrate how much stronger the runners are than they ever thought they could be. Total strangers line up alongside the route to yell encouragement. Bands play. Some hand out cups of water, Gatorade, even beer. Others dress up in costumes to make the runners smile. The fact that other people can run this far makes us believe we can run that far. It’s a happy thought. It makes us all feel a little bit stronger.
Today, the final line of the Boston Marathon is a crime scene. It’s a testament to how much more evil human beings can be than we can imagine. The bomb — or at least what we think was a bomb — went off at four hours and nine minutes. As Pacific Standard notes, that’s a popular marathon time. It seems likely that the detonation was timed to kill as many people as possible.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/04/15/if-you-are-losing-faith-in-human-nature-go-out-and-watch-a-marathon/
All BOLO reports seem to be sourced from CNN.
At least as far as I saw.
That seems odd that it isn't from the police.
On edit: report here...
BOSTON (CNN) -- Investigators have warned police to be on the lookout for a "darker-skinned or black male" with a possible foreign accent in connection with Monday's bombings at the Boston Marathon, according to a law enforcement advisory obtained by CNN. The man was seen with a black backpack and sweatshirt and was trying to get into a restricted area about five minutes before the first explosion, the lookout notice states.
Read more: http://www1.whdh.com/news/articles/local/boston/10010376887472/boston-marathon-explosions-bolo/#ixzz2QaKHDvVu
Immigration bill would spark surge of legal arrivals
WASHINGTON — While much of the debate over immigration has focused on the fate of the estimated 11 million people in the U.S. without legal authorization, one of the biggest immediate impacts of the reform bill being prepared in the Senate would be a sudden, large surge in legal migration.
The U.S. admits about 1 million legal immigrants per year, more than any other country. That number could jump by more than 50% over the next decade under the terms of the immigration reform bill that a bipartisan group of senators expects to unveil as early as Tuesday. The impact would be felt nationwide, but areas that already have large immigrant communities would probably see much of the increase.
The immigration package includes at least four major provisions that would increase the number of legal immigrants, according to people familiar with it. Some of the parts could generate as much controversy as the provisions dealing with those who enter the country illegally or overstay their visas, according to those with long experience of the politics of immigration.
Supporters say that higher levels of legal immigration would meet the U.S. need for certain kinds of workers. Increased legal migration also would reduce most of the incentive for illegal border crossings, backers of the plan say, and would allow border agents to focus on smugglers and people with violent criminal records.
http://touch.latimes.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-75398559/
Well that's just what we need to improve our high unemployment numbers...not.
For anyone who doesn't believe entitlements + interest on the debt will crowd out all other spending
This chart is for you...
And if you doubt these numbers you can see its source page from the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT.
http://www.fms.treas.gov/fr/12frusg/12guide.pdf
On edit: And if you are concerned about interest on the debt you may want to reconsider the idea that the deficit doesn't mean anything.
More areas consider using fake speed cameras
LAUREL, Md. - In a new twist on speed cameras, the City of Laurel introduced two fake cameras this week.
In a story first reported by NBC 4, the two decoy boxes look just like the real cameras with police logos, except there is no actual camera inside.
He says the cameras themselves have a halo effect. For example, most Marylanders are unaware that speed cameras can only ticket drivers from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m., Monday through Friday. Drivers will often slow down in front of cameras on the weekend, unaware that cameras cannot issue tickets.
So will Laurel purchase more decoy cameras? McLaughlin said he will wait to see before making that decision. But he did say that police will rotate the decoy cameras with the real cameras every few months so that drivers will not know which are real and which are fake.
http://www.wtop.com/654/3284194/More-areas-consider-using-fake-speed-cameras
Nate Silver: What Is Driving Growth in Government Spending?
It’s one of the most fundamental political questions of our time: What’s driving the growth in government spending? And it has a relatively straightforward answer: first and foremost, spending on health care through Medicare and Medicaid, and other major social insurance and entitlement programs.
The usgovernmentspending.com data classifies three subcategories of entitlement programs. Spending on welfare programs like food stamps and unemployment insurance is the most cyclical – or technically the most countercyclical, since much of it kicks in automatically during an economic downturn. Spending on retirement programs, principally Social Security, is the steadiest, but it has been increasing faster than the rate of gross domestic product growth and considerably faster than inflation. And health care spending has been increasing at the fastest rate.
Specifically, overall government spending on entitlement programs increased at a 4.8 annual rate in the 40 years between 1972 and 2011, net of inflation. Health care spending increased at 5.7 percent per year (and federal government spending on health care increased at a 6.7 percent pace). In contrast, the gross domestic product grew at a rate of 2.7 percent over this period, with tax revenues increasing at about the same rate as the G.D.P.
Another way to view these data is to allocate the increase in spending-to-G.D.P. between the different categories of expenditures. Total government spending — including federal, state and local spending — rose to about 39 percent of the gross domestic product in 2011 from about 30 percent in 1972. So we have a 9 percent increase to account for, which is equal to about $1.3 trillion per year in current dollars.
Spending on entitlement programs was about $500 billion per year in 1972 in today’s dollars. If it had increased at the same rate as the gross domestic product, it would now be about $1.4 trillion. Instead, it is now about $2.9 trillion per year. What this means is that there has been about a $1.5 trillion increase in entitlement spending above and beyond gross domestic product growth. This is actually slightly larger than the overall increase in government spending relative to gross domestic product. This results from the fact that spending on the other categories has been essentially flat relative to the gross domestic product (infrastructure and services), or constitutes a negligible part of the budget for the time being (interest), or actually decreased relative to gross domestic product over the 40-year period (defense).
http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/16/what-is-driving-growth-in-government-spending/
The High Cost of Out-of-Pocket Expenses (while on Medicare)
On average, people with Medicare coverage paid $38,688 for medical care in the last five years of life.
There was enormous variation, with 25 percent of participants spending an average $101,791 out-of-pocket for medical services and 25 percent spending an average $5,163 during this period.
One-quarter of older adults incurred out-of-pocket medical expenses that exceeded the total value of their assets during this five-year period. Forty-three percent of older adults incurred expenses that exceeded their assets, excluding the value of their homes.
People with Alzheimer’s disease spent more than those with any other type of illness — an average $66,155 during the last five years of life, compared with average spending of $32,129 for cancer, $37,996 for cardiovascular disease and $38,517 for diabetes.
Long-term care expenses (nursing home, assisted living), which aren’t covered by Medicare, much to many families’ deep surprise, were the No. 1 category of out-of-pocket spending, followed by home health care.
http://newoldage.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/21/the-high-cost-of-out-of-pocket-expenses/
Grover Norquist: Chained CPI Violates Taxpayer Protection Pledge
President Barack Obama unveiled a budget proposal on Wednesday morning that would switch tax brackets and Social Security cost-of-living adjustments, which are indexed for inflation, from the current version of the Consumer Price Index to a "chained CPI," which says inflation rises more slowly. The change would reduce future benefit increases and push more taxpayers into higher brackets, a phenomenon known as "bracket creep."
Americans for Tax Reform, the advocacy group that asks lawmakers to sign a formal "Taxpayer Protection Pledge," said Tuesday that chained CPI violates the pledge.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/10/grover-norquist-chained-cpi_n_3052646.html
There is more to chained CPI than social security as inflation adjustments run through many programs.
Hacker says phone app could hijack plane
A German security consultant, who's also a commercial pilot, has demonstrated tools he says could be used to hijack an airplane remotely, using just an Android phone.
Speaking at the Hack in the Box security summit in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, Hugo Teso said Wednesday that he spent three years developing SIMON, a framework of malicious code that could be used to attack and exploit airline security software, and an Android app to run it that he calls PlaneSploit.
Using a flight simulator, Teso showed off the ability to change the speed, altitude and direction of a virtual airplane by sending radio signals to its flight-management system. Current security systems don't have strong enough authentication methods to make sure the commands are coming from a legitimate source, he said.
"You can use this system to modify approximately everything related to the navigation of the plane," Teso told Forbes after his presentation. "That includes a lot of nasty things."
http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/11/tech/mobile/phone-hijack-plane/index.html
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