December 21, 2014

[NYPD] we have.....become a ‘wartime’ police department. We will act according

A statement purporting to be from the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, the biggest police union, blamed Mr. de Blasio for the shootings.

“The mayor’s hands are literally dripping with our blood because of his words, actions and policies,” read the statement, “and we have, for the first time in a number of years, become a ‘wartime’ police department. We will act accordingly.”

The statement instructed officers to forward it to colleagues, and it spread instantly through the department.

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/12/20/brooklyn-police-shooting-live-blog/

The complete statement

December 21, 2014

Statement from Attorney General Eric Holder

I condemn this afternoon's senseless shooting of two New York City police officers in the strongest possible terms. This was an unspeakable act of barbarism, and I was deeply saddened to hear of the loss of these two brave officers in the line of duty.

On behalf of all those who serve in the United States Department of Justice, I want to express my heartfelt condolences to the officers' loved ones and colleagues. I will make available all of the resources of the Department to aid the NYPD in investigating this tragedy.

This cowardly attack underscores the dangers that are routinely faced by those who protect and serve their fellow citizens. As a nation we must not forget this as we discuss the events of the recent past. These courageous men and women routinely incur tremendous personal risks, and place their lives on the line each and every day, in order to preserve public safety. We are forever in their debt.

Our nation must always honor the valor -- and the sacrifices -- of all law enforcement officers with a steadfast commitment to keeping them safe. This means forging closer bonds between officers and the communities they serve, so that public safety is not a cause that is served by a courageous few, but a promise that's fulfilled by police officials and citizens working side by side.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/eric-holder-nypd-killings

Interesting that he doesn't use the word "terrorist" attack.

December 20, 2014

Can Liberal Zionists Count On Hillary Clinton?

Daniel Zemel first visited Israel fresh off his bar mitzvah, in 1966. A bookish Jewish kid from Chicago, Zemel had a love for Israel inherited from his grandfather, Rabbi Solomon Goldman, a friend of Albert Einstein’s who was president from 1938 to 1940 of the then left-leaning Zionist Organization of America. With the other members of his Jewish education group, the 13-year-old Zemel spent two weeks in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Haifa. He lunched in cafeterias with the kibbutzniks he idolized, ate frozen treats on the beach and climbed a lookout tower, peering into Jerusalem’s still forbidden Old City. A year later, Zemel was ecstatic when Israeli forces captured everything he had surveyed and beyond, including the Temple Mount, the West Bank and Gaza, in the Six-Day War with Egypt, Syria and Jordan. Over the decades, as Israel matured and began to wrestle with the occupation, Zemel did, too. He visited Israel again and again, as a college student, a rabbinical student and an assistant rabbi in Minnesota.

In 1983, Zemel became the head rabbi of Temple Micah, in the Northwest section of Washington. In the constellation of liberal American synagogues, there are a handful that stand out for their political engagement and the influence of their members — Leo Baeck Temple in Los Angeles, Congregation Beth Elohim in Park Slope, Brooklyn, and KAM Isaiah Israel on Barack Obama’s old block in Chicago. But none have more connections to Capitol Hill.

In the fall, Zemel, a contemplative 62-year-old with horn-rimmed glasses, a bushy mustache and a bald dome from which his skullcap incessantly slips, stood before his congregation in a state of unrest. It was the start of the Jewish New Year, and he had decided to express his anguish over Israel in the form of a sermon about the direction his beloved country had taken. All summer, during the war in Gaza, Zemel and many of the members of his progressive congregation had been racked with worry. In his book-lined office, decorated with an Israeli flag and a poster of Yoda holding a Hebrew bible, emails from congregants had been regularly popping up on Zemel’s computer screen, railing about Israelis “killing children.” Zemel sat with congregants as they wept on his couch.

The entire year 5774, in fact, was a trying one for Zemel and other liberal Zionists, who increasingly find themselves torn between their liberalism and Zionism and stranded in the disappearing middle between the extremes of a polarized American Jewish community. Micah’s liberal Zionists remained wedded to a two-state solution for Israelis and Palestinians and estranged from the policies of a right-wing Israeli government, along with the reflexive Israel-can-do-no-wrong sentiment on Capitol Hill. But they also felt alienated by Jewish groups to their left, some of which chanted, “Stop the murder, stop the hate, Israel is a racist state.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/21/magazine/can-liberal-zionists-count-on-hillary-clinton.html

December 20, 2014

Public officials call for investigations into Chevron flaring (Richmond, CA)

Despite assertions from Chevron that large flames emanating from its refinery in Richmond Thursday night were normal, public officials Friday are saying they were anything but.

On Thursday around 6:36 p.m., flaring at Chevron's Richmond refinery produced dramatic flames and what looked like smoke that were visible for miles.

Chevron released an initial report on the incident Thursday saying that the unplanned flaring incident occurred after a loss of cooling capability in a solvent de-asphalting unit led to a process upset.

Flaring is used to burn off excess fuels and depressurize a unit.

"The safety devices worked as intended to preserve the mechanical integrity of the equipment, resulting in flaring," Chevron spokesman Braden Reddall said in a statement. "To minimize any further flaring, the unit was shut down following the shutdown procedure."

http://wn.ktvu.com/story/27675990/public-officials-call-for-investigations-into-chevron-flaring

December 20, 2014

Kim Jong-un death scene: watch The Interview clip

The scene from The Interview in which North Korea's leader, Kim Jong-un, is killed has leaked online.
The film, which stars Seth Rogan and James Franco, was pulled by Sony after the studio received threats of violence from North Korean hackers.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/film-news/11300783/interview-Kim-Jong-un-death-scene.html

December 20, 2014

Concentrated cannabis qualifies as medical marijuana, California court rules

A state appellate court in Sacramento has ruled that “concentrated cannabis” qualifies as marijuana for purposes of medical use.

A unanimous three-justice panel of the 3rd District Court of Appeal disagreed this week with an earlier ruling by El Dorado Superior Court Judge James R. Wagoner and reversed the judge’s decision that a medical marijuana patient violated probation by possessing concentrated cannabis.

Sean Patrick Mulcrevy, of Cameron Park, was charged in 2013 with unlawful possession of concentrated cannabis, a misdemeanor, and was alleged to have violated his probation because of his failure “to obey all laws.”

Wagoner reviewed the existing legal authority indicating that concentrated cannabis is covered by California’s Compassionate Use Act, or CUA, the 1996 voter initiative approving medical use of marijuana with a doctor’s recommendation. But Wagoner rejected the authority as “unsound” and ruled that “the (CUA) does not apply to concentrated cannabis” because the act does not define marijuana, refer to concentrated cannabis or incorporate statutory definitions of either term.

According to the state’s Health & Safety Code, concentrated cannabis is “the separated resin, whether crude or purified, obtained from marijuana.”

http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/article4708713.html

December 20, 2014

Security experts: FBI report light on evidence linking North Korea to Sony hack

Even after the Federal Bureau of Investigation's official statement that North Korea was behind the Sony attack, many cybersecurity experts are still skeptical the hermit nation is truly the culprit, citing a lack of new and more convincing evidence.

“It’s mostly a repeat of information that has been in the public before,” Rob Graham, chief executive officer of research firm Errata Security, said of the FBI's statement issued Friday.

Many prominent names in the field, Graham and others, took to Twitter to express their concern. "I'm completely underwhelmed by the FBI's 'proof' attributing Sony attack to North Korea," Graham tweeted from his @ErrataRob account.

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Passcode/2014/1219/Security-experts-FBI-report-light-on-evidence-linking-North-Korea-to-Sony-hack

December 20, 2014

Prepackaged caramel apples linked to 4 deaths, dozens of illnesses

Health officials are warning consumers to avoid prepackaged caramel apples because they are linked to four deaths and more than two dozen illnesses in 10 states.

Caramel apples are most popular around Halloween, and the outbreak started just before then, in mid-October. But the commercially produced variety can have a shelf life of a month or more, and some may still be on store shelves.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it knows of 28 cases in which people were sickened with the same strains of the bacterial illness listeria, and at least 26 were hospitalized. Of those, five died. Listeriosis contributed to four of the deaths; a fifth person who died had a strain of listeria linked to the caramel apples, but health officials do not think listeriosis caused that person's death.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/prepackaged-caramel-apples-linked-4-deaths-article-1.2051566

December 19, 2014

Think North Korea hacked Sony? Think about this

North Korea or not? There’s still a lot we don’t know about the attack on Sony Pictures and those behind it.

After two weeks of investigations, anonymous government officials told some reporters and politicians on Wednesday that North Korea was behind the attacks. But on Thursday, U.S. officials resisted making the same allegations in public and didn’t release any evidence to back up the anonymous claims.

North Korean involvement is certainly possible. After all, defectors have spoken about North Korea’s cyber attack force and training. But it also plays into a popular and easy-to-believe narrative about the country.

There certainly appears to be circumstantial evidence, but it could be just that. So before calling case closed, here are some reasons to be wary, at least until some evidence is made public.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2861492/think-north-korea-hacked-sony-think-about-this.html

December 19, 2014

How North Korea, one of the world's poorest countries, got so good at hacking

Even before a US government investigation confirmed suspicions that North Korea was behind the massive cyberattack on Sony Pictures, everybody has seemed to be asking the same question about even the possibility of North Korean responsibility. Can one of the poorest countries in the world, a country that has isolated itself into technological backwardness, where personal computers are banned and the Internet does not officially exist, possibly be that good at hacking?

The answer is that, yes, North Korea really is that good at hacking, and the country has a substantial record of sophisticated cyberattacks. The answer as to how North Korea is so good at hacking is more complex, but gets at some of the most important — and most misunderstood — elements of how the Hermit Kingdom really works.

North Korean government hackers have launched a number of successful, high-profile attacks, and who knows how many lower-profile ones. The attacks have grown in scale and sophistication in the last few years, apparently as North Korea ratchets up the largely offensive and military-run program.

In July 2009, for example, US and South Korean government web sites were hit by what US officials called a "massive" and "powerful" wave of cyber attacks eventually traced back to North Korea. While the attacks did little more than symbolic damage, they were bad enough that US officials cited it as a moment when they realized the urgency of preparing to defend against state-based hackers generally.

http://www.vox.com/2014/12/18/7413229/north-korea-hack-sony