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n2doc's JournalSouth Carolina Supreme Court Drops Hammer On Todd Kincannon
|| By FITSNEWS || The S.C. Supreme Court has suspended the law license of Columbia, S.C. attorney, former SCGOP official and social media provocateur extraordinaire Todd Kincannon after he allegedly suffered a “major meltdown” this week. Not only that, the court has placed Kincannon on “incapacity inactive status” and assigned his client’s files and financial accounts to another attorney.
News of the suspension/ transfer was posted to the court’s website on Friday afternoon.
What happened? According to sources at the court’s Office of Disciplinary Counsel (ODC), Kincannon’s meltdown occurred during a court appearance this week. Following this alleged incident, the self-described “honey badger of American politics” is said to have sent “multiple emails and facsimile messages” reportedly containing “menacing language and images” to a variety of different recipients.
Among the images? Pictures of Kincannon with a gun pointed to his head.
Read more at http://www.fitsnews.com/2015/08/29/supreme-court-drops-hammer-on-todd-kincannon/
Italy's Eni discovers huge gas field off Egyptian coast
Italian energy group Eni says it has found one of the world's largest natural gas fields off Egypt's coast.
The company said the area was 1,450m (4,757 feet) beneath the surface and covered 100 sq km (39 sq miles).
It could hold as much as 30 trillion cubic feet of gas, or 5.5 billion barrels of oil equivalent, Eni said.
The company says that the Zohr field "could become one of the world's largest natural-gas finds" and help meet Egypt's gas needs for decades.
more
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-34102656
Conservationists appalled at illegal killing of 25 million birds a year in the Mediterranean
John Vidal
The Egyptians line their beaches with fine two-metre high nets that can stretch for miles across the Nile delta and will catch any bird coming close; the Maltese will cover whole trees in nylon; the Cypriots smear branches in glue to stop birds flying; the Italians will kill nearly anything that flies and the French like to set metal traps for small birds.
But the sheer scale of the cruelty of the illegal wild bird killings around the Mediterranean which was revealed last week has shocked conservationists and bird lovers across Europe.
According to the first study of its kind, which has attempted to put a realistic number on how many birds are killed illegally each year, possibly 25 million chaffinches, thrushes, robins, quails and many other species are being shot, trapped or poisoned as they migrate to and from mainland Europe.
But what has shocked most is that strong laws have been shown not to be working and are being openly flaunted by hunters. Nearly half the 25m killings occur in EU states where the birds directive applies, and many other Mediterranean countries also ban the hunting of songbirds.
more
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/aug/26/conservationists-appalled-at-illegal-killing-of-25m-birds-a-year-in-the-mediterranean?9
Mysterious Russian Statue Is 11,000 Years Old - Twice As Old As The Pyramids
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A mysterious wooden idol found in a Russian peat bog has been dated to 11,000 years ago - and contains a code no one can decipher.
The Shigir Idol is twice as old as the Pyramids and Stonehenge - and is by far the oldest wooden structure in the world.
Even more mysteriously, it is covered in what experts describe as ‘encrypted code’ - a message from a lost civilisation.
Professor Mikhail Zhilin of the Russian Academy of Sciences' Institute of Archeology said: 'The ornament is covered with nothing but encrypted information. People were passing on knowledge with the help of the Idol.'
Russian experts think that the strange carvings may contain a belief system, the equivalent of the Bible’s Genesis.
The statue had been dated as being 9,500 years old, after its discovery in a peat bog 125 years ago.
But new research in Mannheim, Germany used Accelerated Mass Spectrometry n small fragments of the sculpture, and found it is at least 11,000 years old.
more
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/mysterious-russian-statue-is-11-000-years-old---twice-as-old-as-the-pyramids-170632897.html#lLJKRVM
NASA has a mission called ‘OMG.’ Here’s how it got its name.
OMG isn't just popular shorthand for "Oh my God," it's also a NASA mission. Short for Oceans Melting Greenland, the research program is dedicated to looking at the loss of ice around the world's largest island — a rapidly changing part of the planet that likely has many climate scientists exclaiming, "Oh, my God!"
But it's far from the only interesting or on-point acronym the space agency has used lately: Consider KaBOOM, or Ka-Band Objects Observation and Monitoring, which tracks things that could crash into the Earth. Or the Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous, or NEAR, which researches — what else — an asteroid near our home planet.
So how exactly does NASA come up with these names?
A little history lesson can help us understand the process: At first, there was no single method for picking names, according to NASA chief historian Bill Barry. But in 1961, the agency issued a set of management instructions — what we'd now call a policy directive — that gave a few basic rules:
more
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2015/08/28/nasa-has-a-mission-called-omg-heres-how-it-got-its-name/
The Democratic National Committee barely has more cash than it does IOUs
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The Democratic National Committee barely has more cash than it does IOUs, and it is being outraised month after month by its Republican competitor.
Its $24 million debt from the 2012 presidential election, only recently paid down, has squeezed investments in the next White House race. Underdeveloped party resources such as voter data files could become a serious disadvantage for the eventual nominee, particularly if that person is not front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton, who would enter a general election contest with her own outreach network.
Those fundraising realities are top of mind as Democratic officials, donors and activists meet Thursday through Saturday in Minneapolis. Clinton, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley and former Sen. Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island are scheduled to speak to attendees Friday.
Federal Election Commission reports tell a disappointing story for the party: The DNC collected $36.5 million in the first six months of the year and had almost no money in special accounts, including one designated for its convention. It had about $7.6 million in available cash and $6.2 million in debts and loans.
more
http://wthitv.com/ap/democratic-party-lags-in-money-before-presidential-year/
It has to be asked, is DWS a Republican mole?
Militarized Police Drones Are Now Legal In North Dakota
WE’RE STILL FEELING the ripple effect from the Ashley Madison hack this week. Not only is its parent company, Avid Life Media, offering a $500K CDN reward for info on the hackers, and not only are the lawsuits rolling in, but on Friday CEO Noel Bidermen stepped down. The world’s biggest online drug marketplace Agora is on hiatus following suspicious activity that its moderators think was intended to deanonymize the site. The UN’s newly appointed privacy chief described the UK’s digital surveillance as worse than 1984. Meanwhile, a U.S. appellate court ruled that the Federal Trade Commission can regulate and fine companies for getting hacked, so long as they engaged in unfair or deceptive business practices, such as publishing a privacy policy and failing to make good on it.
But there’s more. Each week we round up the news stories that we didn’t break or cover in depth at WIRED, but which deserve your attention nonetheless. As always, click on the headlines to read the full story in each link posted, and stay safe out there!
Militarized Drones Are Now Legal In North Dakota
Police in North Dakota can now legally fly militarized drones armed with tasers, tear gas, rubber bullets, pepper spray, or sound cannons, thanks to the passage of House Bill 1328. The bill was originally meant to require police officers to obtain a search warrant in order to use the drones for criminal evidence, and would have banned the use of all weapons on drones (not just the lethal ones), but then a lobbyist made some changes. A compliance committee is supposed to track and review police use of drones and keep it in check, but the group has no legal authority—and its members aren’t exactly unbiased. “Of the committee’s 18 members, six are from UND, which has a vested interest in promoting drone use. Three are members of local government, including the city planner and an assistant state’s attorney. And the rest are either current or former members of law enforcement and emergency services,” the Daily Beast’s Justin Glawe writes.
Was China Behind The DDoS Attack on GitHub?
Just months after recovering from a prolonged distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack linked to the Great Firewall of China, GitHub was hit with another DDoS attack this past Tuesday. Although the code repository hasn’t shared any details, some observers think China may shoulder the blame this time, too. That’s because Shadowsocks, a tool that Chinese hackers created to circumvent China’s censorship, apparently shut down and removed its code due to government pressure—and a similar circumvention tool, GoAgent, mysteriously removed its code from GitHub as well. It’s possible that China is targeting GitHub since Shadowsocks’ code repositories have been forked.
more
http://www.wired.com/2015/08/security-news-week-oh-good-weaponized-police-drones/
Canada's prime minister wants to make it harder for people to vote against him
Acclaimed Canadian author Margaret Atwood faced censorship in the national press late last week for her satirical take on Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s hair. It might have been a rather amusing episode if it wasn’t symptomatic of darker, Orwellian trends that have marked Harper’s nine years in office.
Stephen Marche’s article in the New York Times mid-month does an excellent job of summarizing how Harper has pulled tight the reins of power, stifled criticism and eroded the freedoms of Canadians. But it is in the prime minister’s assaults on the most fundamental of democratic acts, a citizen’s right to vote, that Harper’s lust for control finds its most disturbing outlet.
Not confident of winning re-election on merit in October, he’s pushed through a series of legal changes spearheaded by the perversely named Fair Elections Act. Harper’s front man for the task, the aptly titled democratic reform minister, Pierre Poilievre, brushed off critics, claiming the changes are “common sense”. But it’s more likely that, after winning by an uncomfortably small margin in the last election and, after nine years, having the distinct honor of the lowest job creation numbers since World War II and least economic growth since the 1960s, Harper is making sure potential naysayers have a harder time accessing the polls.
The Fair Elections Act strips Elections Canada, the nonpartisan government body responsible for administering elections, of its authority to actively encourage citizens to vote – a matter, we’re told, that is the responsibility of political parties to promote. And on voting day, incumbent candidates and not Elections Canada will appoint polling supervisors. This hardly smells like democracy.
more
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/aug/28/canada-stephen-harper-harder-to-vote?CMP=ema_565
You want to know how much Teachers love their students? This Much:
In a bankrupt Pa. school district, teachers plan to work for free
Employees of the Chester Upland School District in Pennsylvania will show up for work on the first day of school next Wednesday, but they don’t expect to get paid.
The district, which has been struggling with financial and academic problems for decades, is on the edge of insolvency and cannot make payroll, state and local officials have said.
So on Thursday, about 200 members of the local teachers union voted unanimously to work without pay as the new school year opens. They were joined by secretaries, school bus drivers, janitors and administrators.
“The thought of it is very scary,” said John Shelton, 60, dean of students at the district’s only middle school and a 23-year employee. “It’s mind-boggling because there’s truly uncertainty. But we are all in agreement that we will come to work, so that the children can get an education.”
more
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/in-a-bankrupt-pa-school-district-teachers-plan-to-work-for-free/2015/08/28/0332898e-4dba-11e5-84df-923b3ef1a64b_story.html
Next time some MF'ing right winger starts whining about teachers, hit them with this. How many private industry workers would work for free?
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