January 2, 2014

Second high-profile defendant turns to Norment

http://hamptonroads.com/2014/01/second-highprofile-defendant-turns-norment

Second high-profile defendant turns to Norment
By Kathy Adams
Patrick Wilson
The Virginian-Pilot
© January 2, 2014

Facing a DUI or traffic charge? You might want to retain the state's Senate majority leader to represent you.

~snip~

The retired judge appointed by the Virginia Supreme Court to hear the case was Thomas L. Murphey of Chesterfield, who joined the bench in 1994, when both Norment and Ken Stolle Sr. served on the Senate committee that screens judicial nominees. Norment now chairs that committee.

Underwood's office prosecuted the case so Beach prosecutors could avoid a conflict of interest. Underwood assigned Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Marvin Smith Jr., who had been with the office about 18 months, to handle it in court.

On April 30, Murphey ruled there was no probable cause for the drunken driving arrest and did not allow Stolle Jr.'s blood alcohol content to be entered into evidence. Murphey convicted Stolle Jr. of misdemeanor hit-and-run and fined him $250.

January 2, 2014

Fiat stock soars after deal for rest of Chrysler

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_ITALY_FIAT_CHRYSLER?SITE=VANOV&SECTION=BUSINESS&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

Fiat stock soars after deal for rest of Chrysler
Jan 2, 5:46 AM EST

ROME (AP) -- The price of Fiat shares is soaring after the Italian automaker announced it had clinched a deal to acquire the rest of Chrysler, with no plans for a capital increase.

The share price on the Milan exchange soared 12 percent Thursday, having been up by as much as 15.8 percent earlier in the day.

Fiat SpA trumpeted the announcement Wednesday night that it had reached an agreement with the United Auto Workers union-controlled trust fund holding 41.5 percent of Chrysler's shares. Fiat already possesses the remaining shares. Fiat says it will pay $1.75 billion (about 1.35 billion euros) in cash at hand. Another $1.9 billion (almost 1.5 billion euros) will be paid as extraordinary dividends.

The deal is due to close by Jan. 20.

January 2, 2014

(military) Sequestration continues, but cuts not as deep

http://kdhnews.com/military/sequestration-continues-but-cuts-not-as-deep/article_23349516-7296-11e3-8986-001a4bcf6878.html

Sequestration continues, but cuts not as deep
Posted: Wednesday, January 1, 2014 4:30 am
Rose L Thayer | Herald staff writer

Year two of sequestration begins today, but Congress’ end-of-year budget deal lessened the effects of the cuts to the Defense Department.

Military officials’ pleas to Congress to ease sequestration had some impact. Sequestration — the across-the-board cuts of the Budget Control Act of 2011 — were passed last year as a means to reduce the federal government’s deficit by $1.2 trillion over a decade.

In 2014, sequestration cuts on the department were reduced to about $30 billion instead of last year’s hard-hitting $46 billion.

“This agreement does not solve all of DOD’s budget problems, but it helps us address our readiness, especially in 2014, with putting more money back into training in particular, and procurement,” said Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel during a news conference in December. “It also gives us some new certainty and predictability for our planning, for our budgeting over the next two years, which is particularly important.”




unhappycamper comment: DoD to Americans: Sorry about your Food Stamp and unemployment cuts, but we need new toys.

January 2, 2014

HP confirms higher layoffs expected

http://www.thenewstribune.com/2014/01/01/2973383/hp-confirms-higher-layoffs-expected.html

HP confirms higher layoffs expected
January 1, 2014 Updated 20 hours ago

Personal computer giant Hewlett-Packard Co. has confirmed that it expects layoffs at the upper end of a range that it outlined earlier this year, with 5,000 more workers than originally planned expected to lose jobs by October 2014.

The company said in a securities filing Monday that “continued market and business pressures” were behind the move. The additional cuts are on top of the 29,000 positions it planned to cut in a May 2012 restructuring plan.

Cost cuts have helped HP weather revenue declines. In the fiscal year through Oct. 31, revenue fell 7 percent to $112.3 billion, but the company posted $5.1 billion in net profit, compared with a $12.7 billion loss a year earlier.




unhappycamper comment: When you outsource everything to China, your only cost cutting choice is to remove 'redundant' workers.

January 2, 2014

Cambodian troops quash protest at factory

http://www.adn.com/2014/01/02/3255137/cambodian-troops-quash-protest.html

Cambodian troops quash protest at factory
The Associated Press
January 2, 2014

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — Troops have been used to forcefully quell a demonstration by striking factory workers in Cambodia, with Buddhist monks and labor leaders among those detained.

A statement by the local human rights group LICADHO said soldiers from a military special command unit carrying metal pipes, knives, AK-47 rifles, slingshots and batons clashed twice Thursday with striking workers at a factory in Phnom Penh's outlying Pursenchey district. It said 10 people were taken into military custody. It also said monks and workers were beaten.

National Military Police spokesman Kheng Tito said those arrested had led hundreds of protesting workers in trying to destroy factory property.

Many of Cambodia's estimated 500,000 garment workers are on strike demanding an increase in the minimum wage to $160 a month, about double the current rate.

January 2, 2014

Solar Ascendancy: Minnesota Court Ruling for Solar over Gas a Harbinger of Things to Come

http://www.juancole.com/2014/01/ascendancy-minnesota-harbinger.html

This ruling marks the first time that unsubsidized solar has gone toe to toe with natural gas and won (natural gas also receives Federal subsidies). As such, it may mark a turning point.

Solar Ascendancy: Minnesota Court Ruling for Solar over Gas a Harbinger of Things to Come
By Juan Cole | Jan. 2, 2014

Minnesota Judge Eric Lipman found that solar is a better deal than natural gas for Xcel Energy, permitting Geronimo Energy to construct 20 huge solar facilities worth $250 million in Xcel’s service area in that state. The amount of solar power in the state would increase by a factor of 7. The ruling still has to be approved by the Public Utilities Commission.

Here’s the kicker: Geronimo’s Aurora solar project will get no state subsidy (it is eligible for a Federal tax break, as are most solar projects including individual rooftop solar panel installations– these have not been affected by the budget uncertainties on Federal wind farm subsidies). This ruling marks the first time that unsubsidized solar has gone toe to toe with natural gas and won (natural gas also receives Federal subsidies). As such, it may mark a turning point. The ruling itself is the harbinger, whether the plan goes through or not.

But we can expect Big Oil and unscrupulous billionaire hydrocarbon moguls like the Koch brothers to attempt to block renewables by having pliant right wing legislators slap penalties on them (such Libertarians, they are). Remember that Big Oil and the other hydrocarbon industries get billions in government subsidies.

Natural gas prices are at a plateau because of oversupply problems in the US, so that little new drilling was done in the US in 2013. In 2013, in fact, the main reason that US carbon emissions fell to a still fatal 5 billion metric tons a year was not that coal plants were supplanted by gas ones; it was that they were supplanted by wind energy in places like Iowa and Colorado. New gas fields are now often developed through hydraulic fracturing, which is a very dirty technology and is meeting opposition (e.g. in New York, etc.) from the public as a result. It is also very water intensive and so not suited to arid zones. Burning the gas is creating deadly climate instability, so that the viability of solar is very good news for humankind. Even if solar were slightly more expensive than hydrocarbons, it is actually a huge bargain because deploying it won’t, like, inundate Miami and burn up Arizona.

January 2, 2014

Egyptian Military Junta Jumps the Shark, Interrogates Islamist Muppet

http://www.juancole.com/2014/01/egyptian-interrogates-islamist.html

Egyptian Military Junta Jumps the Shark, Interrogates Islamist Muppet
By Juan Cole | Jan. 2, 2014

When the venerable al-Ahram newspaper, then under the control of the government of Hosni Mubarak, published the allegation during the 2011 revolution that the crowds were just coming down to Tahrir Square for KFC chicken, it was the beginning of the end of the Mubarak establishment. It might have survived being repressive, brutal and incompetent. It could not survive being viewed as ridiculous.

The military regime that came to power in a coup on July 3 has put January 25 revolutionaries in jail for protesting and has used brutal methods to clear sit-ins by the Muslim Brotherhood. But it is demonstrating a bizarre paranoia in its latest moves.

Vodafone had produced a commercial for the Egyptian market featuring muppet characters Abla Fahita and her daughter Karkura. Ms. Fahita speaks to an off-screen character, Mama Tutu, whom one television pundit, Ahmad Spider, accused of being symbolic of the now-proscribed Muslim Brotherhood. Spider had earlier maintained that the 2011 revolutionaries were a conspiracy of Freemasons.

The Egyptian government prosecutor general then actually asked the state security office to investigate the commercials. A Vodafone executive said “I don’t know what to say, I’m sad that we have reached this level of thinking…” The state security prosecutor interrogated him on Wednesday, asking if the muppets were transmitting secret code for the Muslim Brotherhood.

January 2, 2014

Panama Canal contractors warn may halt work

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/panama-canal-contractors-warn-may-halt-work/2014/01/01/4964084c-7337-11e3-bc6b-712d770c3715_story.html



FILE - In this Aug. 22. 2013 file photo, a section of the new rolling gates for the Panama Canal’s third set of locks towers over workers during a press tour in Gatun, Panama. The consortium carrying out a historic expansion of the Panama Canal says it may have to suspend work due to financial problems caused by a $1.6 billion cost overrun. The group issued a statement Wednesday, Jan. 1,

Panama Canal contractors warn may halt work
By Associated Press, Published: January 1

PANAMA CITY, Panama — The consortium at the heart of a historic Panama Canal expansion project threatened on Wednesday to suspend work due to financial problems caused by a $1.6 billion cost overrun.

~snip~

Canal Administrator Jorge L. Quijano responded with his own communique saying the Authority will continue to demand the companies “respect the contract that they themselves accept and signed.” He said the purpose of the consortium’s warning was “to force the organization to negotiate outside the terms established in the contract.”

Grupo Unidos por el Canal is formed by Spain’s Sacyr Vallehermoso, Impregilo of Italy, Jan De Nul of Belgium and Constructora Urbana SA of Panama. It won the contract to design and build a third set of locks with a $3.2 billion bid in 2009.

Panama has estimated the full expansion program will cost $5.2 billion, with the new, wider locks allowing the 50-mile (80-kilometer) canal to handle ships far larger than those that can now navigate the century-old waterway.



unhappycamper comment: A little perspective is needed here. What $1.6 billion dollars will buy in America:

* 10 F/A-18 Growlers
* 6 not-ready-for-prime-time F-35 fighters
* 5 C-17s
* 3 Littoral Combat Ships
* 1 LPD
* a down payment on the world's single most expensive piece of military hardware. the USS Gerald R Ford. wikipedia sez this cost $17.5 billion; this camper guesses $40 billion is closer to the final cost. (BTW, this DOES NOT include stuff like people and aircraft.)

January 2, 2014

Judge upholds search of passengers’ laptops

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/judge-upholds-search-of-passengers-laptops/2013/12/31/f5b39022-726a-11e3-8b3f-b1666705ca3b_story.html

Judge upholds search of passengers’ laptops
By Ellen Nakashima, Published: December 31

A federal judge in New York on Tuesday upheld a government policy that permits officers at U.S. borders to inspect and copy the contents of travelers’ laptops and other devices without reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing.

In his ruling, U.S. District Judge Edward R. Korman dismissed a lawsuit by a university student and a group of criminal defense lawyers and press photographers challenging regulations adopted by the Department of Homeland Security that allow searches of passengers’ electronic equipment at the nation’s borders, including at airports and on trains.

The plaintiffs, who were represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, allege that the policy violates their rights to privacy and free speech.

Korma, a judge in the Eastern District of New York, said that the policy permits searches with or without suspicion, and cited case law that held that “searches at our borders without probable cause and without a warrant are nonetheless ‘reasonable.’”

January 2, 2014

The 6 lucky states that’ll shape the future of drone technology

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/12/30/the-6-lucky-states-thatll-shape-the-future-of-drone-technology/



The six winning states, along with the 18 other states that submitted applications.

The 6 lucky states that’ll shape the future of drone technology
By Brian Fung
December 30, 2013 at 12:37 pm

For months, drone watchers have waited for the Federal Aviation Administration to decide who'll conduct the nation's safety testing on unmanned planes. Now, two days before the deadline, the FAA has named six winners from the original 25 applicants. They are: the University of Alaska, the state of Nevada, Griffiss International Airport in upstate New York, North Dakota's commerce department, Texas A&M University and Virginia Tech.

Each test site will be responsible for testing drones in a different context. Nevada, for instance, will do much of the research on unmanned vehicles' impact on air traffic control. North Dakota will test the data links between drones and their controllers. New York will test the sense-and-avoid technologies crucial for keeping drones away from people and other aircraft. Virginia Tech is to examine what happens when drones fail. Beyond the technical specialties, the test sites were each chosen for being geographically and climatically different from the others, FAA administrator Michael Huerta told reporters Monday.

"What we have is the platform to conduct broad-based research considering a wide variety of factors," said Huerta in a conference call. "We'll see where this research takes us."

In addition to working with aerospace contractors and the government, the test sites will be open to anyone who strikes an agreement with them, Huerta added. That could even include consumer-oriented companies like Amazon, which has proposed using drones to deliver light packages to its customers. (Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.)