This is a sad story of how there has indeed been one Goldman Sachs employee punished and sentenced to jail time.

Unfortunately this person was a programmer, not someone connected to the big financial manipulations that totally collapsed our economy in 2008.

Sergei's main sin was the fact that he was tired of the ersatz computer program that GS had him continually repairing. Even though he was being paid the big bucks at Goldman, he opted out of there in order to head up the computer division at another company, where he could build a computer program from scratch.

Goldman was so attached to the idea that one of the best programmers on the East Coast needed to stay with them, they had him arrested.

http://www.vanityfair.com/business/2013/09/michael-lewis-goldman-sachs-programmer

Because we Americans only got this type of energy back in the 1930's. Watch it and listen to it and then weep:

Everything from the placebo effect to the skipping stones of Death Valley.

http://www.sciencegymnasium.com/2013/12/5-mind-blowing-things-science-still.html

If you have been following the headlines on the huge credit card losses relating to the Target fiasco, then you realize we are in the dark ages with regards to personal security here in the USA.

However citizens in other "advanced" nations really do have security. And yet their governments are not spending a declared 57 cents out of every National Dollar on safety, security and anti-terrorism, as our government does.

Weak US card security made Target a juicy target
Source: AP-Excite

By JONATHAN FAHEY

NEW YORK (AP) - The U.S. is the juiciest target for hackers hunting credit card information. And experts say incidents like the recent data theft at Target's stores will get worse before they get better.

That's in part because U.S. credit and debit cards rely on an easy-to-copy magnetic strip on the back of the card, which stores account information using the same technology as cassette tapes.

"We are using 20th century cards against 21st century hackers," says Mallory Duncan, general counsel at the National Retail Federation. "The thieves have moved on but the cards have not."

In most countries outside the U.S., people carry cards that use digital chips to hold account information. The chip generates a unique code every time it's used. That makes the cards more difficult for criminals to replicate. So difficult that they generally don't bother.

Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/2013122...KH4O2.html

As usual, this vid is informative and scarey. Hudson really kows his stuff.

Feel free to point to this video when folks here say Obama HAD TO appoint Geithner, as Geithner is the only person in the land who can understand the complexities of the banking world.

Off my FB feed, from a friend in Oregon. Husband thought it funny (so do I.)

After being married for 50 years, I took a careful look at my wife one day and said, "Fifty years ago we had a cheap house, a junk car, slept on a sofa bed and watched a 10-inch black and white TV, but I got to sleep with a hot 23-year-old girl every night. Now, I have a $500,000 home, a $45,000 car, a nice big bed and a large screen TV, but I'm sleeping with a 69-year-old woman. It seems to me that you're not holding up your side of things."

My wife is a very reasonable woman. She told me to go out and find a hot 23-year-old girl and she would make sure that I would once again be living in a cheap house, driving a junk car, sleeping on a sofa bed and watching a 10-inch black and white TV.

Aren't older women great? They really know how to solve an old guy's problems.

I am being hit on my Tweet feed about the desperate situation in Syria.

Fingers of blame are pointed at the governmental militias, for holding back food supplies, and keeping those for themselves. Same fingers also point to the various rebel groups for exhibiting the same behavior.

This report is close to two months old. If anyone knows of things there improving, please advise.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/03/world/middleeast/stick-figures-and-stunted-growth-as-warring-syria-goes-hungry.html?_r=0

And that by 1940, no trees would need to be cut to provide for paper.

Hemp is like 4 times more effective in providing paper. We could save our trees for their sheer beauty., and the oxygen they bring us.

US Department of Agriculture prediction:

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=457459167691717&set=a.265471610223808.48416.234503093320660&type=1&theater

I want to remove.

Apparently, since this anti virus program somehow installed a very major toolbar on my computer's internet, I can't remove the anti virus program until I remove the toolbar end of it. Then and only then will I be able to use the Control Panel to remove it.

The toolbar sits right below the normal URL dialogue box. Any help on removing it would be appreciated.

US Senate quietly passed the authorization for indefinite detention and renditioning of Americans.

Oh and that TPP thing-ee is still steamrolling right along.