Jesus Malverde
Jesus Malverde's JournalU.S. Says Dozens of Americans Have Sought to Join Rebels in Syria
Dozens of Americans have traveled or tried to travel to Syria to fight with the rebels against the government of President Bashar al-Assad since 2011, American intelligence officials said Wednesday.
The Americans are a small subset of the mostly radicalized young Muslims with Western passports who are entering Syria from Europe, North America and Australia, a group that numbers roughly 600, according to the officials and classified estimates from Western spy agencies. That represents a fraction of the roughly 6,000 to 11,000 foreign fighters over all who have poured into Syria by way of the Middle East and North Africa.
The Americans’ numbers are small — intelligence officials would not be more precise than saying “dozens” were involved — and they have so far not distinguished themselves on the battlefield. But they are part of what officials said was a growing presence of foreigners who are fighting Mr. Assad’s government.
“It’s a very steady increase, and I expect that to continue as long as the fighting there continues,” a senior American intelligence official said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/21/world/middleeast/us-says-dozens-of-americans-have-sought-to-join-rebels-in-syria.html?_r=0
Wind energy company pleads guilty to eagle deaths
For the first time, the Obama administration is taking action against wind farms for killing eagles.
In a settlement announced Friday, Duke Energy will pay $1 million for killing 14 golden eagles over the past three years at two Wyoming wind farms. The company says it pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.
The case is a first to be prosecuted under that law for a wind company by the Obama administration, which has been a champion for pollution-free wind power.
Eagles act like texting drivers when they search for prey and slam into massive turbines.
http://www.sfgate.com/business/technology/article/Wind-energy-company-pleads-guilty-to-eagle-deaths-5002801.php
California won't extend canceled health policies
Covered California, the state's health exchange, has rejected President Obama's request to let insurers extend their current health policies, a decision that affects about 1 million Californians who have coverage that doesn't comply with the requirements of the federal health law.
The unanimous vote came Thursday at a meeting in Sacramento of Covered California's five-member board of directors. It means that the agency will continue to require the 11 health insurers that sell coverage through the exchange to terminate by Dec. 31 those individual policies that do not meet all the standards of the Affordable Care Act.
Peter Lee, Covered California's executive director, said extending the deadline would not help consumers. "Our board decided pushing problem down road and leading to potentially more confusion ... was actually too big of a risk," he said during a press conference after the vote.
Obama made the request last week after millions of policyholders around the country received notice they would have to change policies despite the president's promise that anyone wanted to keep their health plan could do so. The controversy only added to the debacle surrounding the launch of the health law's federal website.
http://www.sfgate.com/health/article/California-won-t-extend-canceled-health-policies-4999805.php
Covered California also released more detailed enrollment information. As of Tuesday, nearly 79,900 people had enrolled in a health plan through the exchange, and another 135,000 had enrolled in Medi-Cal.
DEA: Alarming rise in prescription pills, heroin, meth use
The Drug Enforcement Administration said after years of progress in the war on drugs, the nation has taken a huge step backward.
Heroin use is skyrocketing, especially in the Southwest, along with prescription drugs and meth.
"It's definitely made a comeback in the most terrible way," said Austin, a recovering prescription drug and heroin addict who asked we not reveal her full name.
Prescription drugs are considered the nation's biggest problem right now, but people are also turning to heroin because it's cheap and easily available - and they're using it at a younger age, according to the DEA.
"I didn't think when I started smoking pot that I'd be shooting heroin and cocaine two years later," said Justin, a recovering addict who also asked that we withhold his last name.
"Percocet and Oxycontin, eventually it just moved along and I figured out that heroin was cheaper," Justin said.
http://www.kpho.com/story/24005155/dea-prescription-pill-heroin-meth-use-dangerously-rising
Foreign Minister: Israel Needs To Seek Allies Other Than US
Source: CBS Local
The rift between U.S. and Israel continues to grow after the latest comments from Israel’s foreign minister.
Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said Wednesday that Israel needs to seek allies other than the United States.
“The Americans have a lot of problems and challenges around the world that they need to solve and they have problems at home. We need to understand them and our place in the global arena,” Lieberman said at the Sderot Conference, according to The Jerusalem Post.
Liberman says relations with the U.S. have “weakened.”
“The link between Israel and its main strategic partner the United States has weakened,” Lieberman stated, according to AFP.
Read more: http://washington.cbslocal.com/2013/11/21/foreign-minister-israel-needs-to-seek-allies-other-than-us/
“We need to stop demanding, complaining, moaning and instead seek countries that are not dependent on money from the Arab or Islamic world and who want to cooperate with us in the field of innovation,” Lieberman said.
Iran and after: Why Israel should embrace France as a partner
All of Obama’s second term foreign policy goals are harmful to Israel. Everything that is good for Obama is necessarily bad for Israel.
FBI secretly spied on ‘David Frost Show’
J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI secretly monitored David Frost’s US program to keep tabs on his left-wing guests – and once even planted an undercover agent in his New York studio audience, according to the famed Brit talk show host’s FBI file, obtained by The Post.
Guests that got the feds’ attention included Johnson-era Attorney General Ramsey Clark, economist John Kenneth Galbraith and black nationalist Stokely Carmichael among others, according to the 45-page dossier obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.
Other Frost guests on the FBI’s radar included folkie Joan Baez and Sen. Edmund Muskie, both critics of the Vietnam War, and Nixon Attorney General John Mitchell, who praised the bureau, the FBI memos revealed.
Perhaps the most bizarre guest to come under the feds scrutiny was “Viva” – aka Susan Hoffman – an actor described in one FBI memo as an “Andy Warhol ‘superstar’ [who] has been the featured female performer in many of his films.”
Viva earned the bureau’s ire because of comments she shared with Frost that were deemed “highly critical of the Government’s position” concerning an anti-Vietnam War activist.
http://nypost.com/2013/11/20/fbi-secretly-spied-on-david-frost-show-to-watch-left-wing-guests/
Israel starting to consider 'day after' Iran agreement
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu will meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Wednesday, as Israel begins preparing its “day after” scenario in expectation of an imminent interim agreement between the P5+1 and Iran.
Netanyahu continued on Tuesday to implore the P5+1 – the US, Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany – to improve the conditions of the deal shaping up. But as he did so, others began talking about strategy for the eventuality that a deal is signed when the sides meet on Wednesday in Geneva for the third time this month.
According to the general contours of the deal, Iran would freeze its nuclear program for six months in return for sanctions relief. This six month period would then be used to try and negotiate a permanent accord.
Likud MK Tzachi Hanegbi, a Netanyahu confidant, said on Tuesday that Israel would not see itself bound by an agreement that does not prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.
But at a briefing organized by The Israel Project, he said that Jerusalem understands this is “a first step toward a final agreement, and will go forward” in its efforts to convey its concerns and convince the world of what is needed to keep Iran from getting nuclear arms.
http://www.jpost.com/Iranian-Threat/News/Israel-starting-to-consider-day-after-Iran-agreement-332324
Oakland moves forward with surveillance center
Source: SFGate
Oakland's City Council voted to move ahead with controversial city surveillance center during a raucous council meeting Tuesday morning that only ended when the police cleared out the chambers.
The council voted 6-1 to approve an incremental resolution allowing the city to hire a new contractor to assemble the Domain Awareness Center, a surveillance hub that would allow police and city officials to continuously monitor video cameras, gunshot detectors and license-plate readers across the city.
Dozens of Oakland residents, deeply worried the center would allow the city to spy on people's everyday lives, tried to turn the resolution into a referendum on surveillance and persuade council members to stall, or scrap, the process.
"Nobody in Oakland wants to be monitored 24/7," said Oakland permaculture designer Ryan Rising, 25. "I see it as a pilot program for other cities to build their own surveillance centers."
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Oakland-moves-forward-with-surveillance-center-4995249.php
Google to fix map image showing slain boy
Google officials said Monday that the company will replace a satellite image that a Richmond man says shows the body of his slain 14-year-old son.
Kevin Barrera was shot and killed on Aug. 15, 2009 near railroad tracks in North Richmond. Unbeknownst to the police and homicide detectives that swarmed the scene, a satellite photo was taken that day — a photo that has since been used as the Google Maps image of the area.
KTVU first reported that his father, Jose Barrera, learned of the image only a few days ago. It shows a body lying on the ground, and a police squad car and several officers nearby. The image was still up as of Monday afternoon.
Richmond police spokeswoman Sgt. Nicole Abetkov said homicide detectives who were on scene have confirmed that the image does in fact depict the crime scene that day and the body on the ground is actually Kevin Barrera.
Barrera’s case is still open, she said.
http://blog.sfgate.com/crime/2013/11/18/google-to-fix-map-image-showing-slain-boy/
Carriers reject kill switch for stolen smartphones
Samsung Electronics, the world's largest mobile phone manufacturer, has proposed installing a built-in anti-theft measure known as a "kill switch" that would render stolen or lost phones inoperable, but the nation's biggest carriers have rejected the idea, according to San Francisco's top prosecutor.
District Attorney George Gascon said Monday that AT&T Inc., Verizon Wireless, United States Cellular Corp., Sprint Corp. and T-Mobile US Inc. rebuffed Samsung's proposal to preload its phones with Absolute LoJack anti-theft software as a standard feature.
The wireless industry says a kill switch isn't the answer because it could allow a hacker to disable someone's phone.
Gascon, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and other law enforcement officials have been demanding that manufacturers create kill switches to combat surging smartphone theft across the country.
http://www.sfgate.com/business/technology/article/Carriers-reject-kill-switch-for-stolen-smartphones-4994216.php
"These emails suggest that the carriers are rejecting a technological solution so they can continue to shake down their customers for billions of dollars in (theft) insurance premiums," Gascon said. "I'm incensed. ... This is a solution that has the potential to end the victimization of their customers."
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Name: Jesus MalverdeGender: Male
Hometown: SF
Current location: Japan
Member since: Fri May 17, 2013, 11:44 PM
Number of posts: 10,274
