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HERMANN MISSOURI OKTOBERFEST 2010
HERMANN MISSOURI OKTOBERFEST 2010 - CLICK ON PHOTO FOR THIS YEARS SCHEDULE OF EVENTS
This image, courtesy of the National Weather Service Forecast Office in San Diego, Calif., shows tornado reports April 1-24, 2011 in the central and eastern part of the U.S.
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April 2011 Likely to Set Record for Most Tornadoes
April 2011 has been a horrific month for severe weather so far with more than 550 reports of tornadoes, at least 39 tornado-related deaths and unthinkable destruction.
As the wild weather pattern continues this week, the month's total number of tornadoes will continue to rise. There is a good chance that April 2011 will end up being the most active April on record for tornadoes.
With May and June typically being the most active months of the year for severe weather, people are wondering if the trend will continue and make 2011 a record-setting year. Stats for April
The total number of tornado reports this month (through Friday) was up to 559, according to the Storm Prediction Center (SPC). At least 15 more reports of twisters were submitted thereafter over the weekend.
It's important to note that these are the number of reports (or sightings), not confirmed tornadoes. Oftentimes multiple sightings of the same tornado are reported, and it will take quite some time until all the data is sorted through and the number of confirmed tornadoes is determined.
According to the SPC, the highest number of confirmed tornadoes recorded in the month of April (since 1950) was 267 in 1974.
If all of the tornado reports so far this month were confirmed, April 2011 would by far be the most active April for tornadoes. Even though the number of confirmed tornadoes will probably end up being quite a bit smaller, this month is still likely to beat the record. Stats for 2011
The preliminary estimate for number of tornadoes so far in 2011 was 766, as of Sunday, with about two dozen states affected. More than 100 tornadoes have been reported in both Alabama and North Carolina.
The year that holds the record for the highest number of tornadoes is 2004 with a whopping 1,817 twisters. For people wondering if 2011 could set a new record, this year has a long way to go.
Since May and June are typically the most active months of the year for severe weather, it may seem that 2011 could have a shot at setting a record following such an extreme April. However, AccuWeather.com Expert Senior Meteorologist Ken Reeves pointed out a trend that may suggest otherwise.
"When you see... an April that is very busy, you don't typically see May and June also to be very active, because the pattern that really supports the very active tornadic activity in April doesn't necessarily continue it, as the threat moves farther to the north and to the east," said Reeves.
Tornadoes are a rare phenomena and require the right ingredients to come together in order to form. Reeves explained that the weather pattern that has been allowing these ingredients to come together in April typically isn't conducive to well-above-normal tornado activity in May and June.
As spring progresses, the threat for severe weather and tornadoes tends to shift northward and eastward across the Plains and East, as the jet stream, an area of maximum winds high up in the atmosphere, shifts northward.
Reeves stated that in most years that had an active April for tornadoes, May and June were not particularly active. The only main exception, he said, would be 2008.
As spring progresses and transitions into summer, the threat for severe weather generally shifts northward across the Plains and East with the jet stream.
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By Robert Snell The Detroit News April 25, 2011
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DETROIT — Federal investigators in Detroit have taken the rare step of obtaining search warrants that give them access to Facebook accounts of suspected criminals.
The warrants let investigators view photographs, email addresses, cell phone numbers, lists of friends who might double as partners in crime, and see GPS locations that could help disprove alibis.
There have been a few dozen search warrants for Facebook accounts nationwide since May 2009, including three approved recently by a federal magistrate judge in Detroit, according to a Detroit News analysis of publicly available federal court records.
The trend raises privacy and evidentiary concerns in a rapidly evolving digital age and illustrates the potential law-enforcement value of social media, experts said.
Locally, Facebook accounts have been seized by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and FBI to investigate more than a dozen gang members and accused bank robber Anthony Wilson of Detroit.
“To be honest with you, it bothers me,” said Wilson, 25, who was indicted Tuesday on bank robbery charges after the FBI compared Facebook photos with images taken from a bank surveillance video. “Facebook could have let me know what was going on. Instead, I got my door kicked down, and all of a sudden I’m in handcuffs.”
Federal investigators defend the practice. “With technology today, we would be crazy not to look at every avenue,” said Special Agent Donald Dawkins, spokesman with the ATF in Detroit.
The FBI suspected Wilson was behind a string of bank robberies across Metro Detroit that netted more than $6,300. Special Agent Juan Herrera said an informant told the FBI about Wilson’s Facebook account. It was registered under the name “Anthony Mrshowoff Wilson.”
In several photos on Facebook, Wilson was wearing a blue baseball hat and blue hooded sweatshirt, both featuring a Polo emblem. That’s the same outfit the FBI said the suspect wore when he stole $390 from a Bank of America Branch in Grosse Pointe Woods on Nov. 26, according to federal court records.
His Facebook photos also included one in which Wilson wore a red Philadelphia Phillies baseball hat, which the FBI said Wilson donned while robbing $1,363 from a PNC Bank branch in St. Clair Shores on Dec. 21, according to court records.
On Jan. 26, U.S. Magistrate Judge Virginia Morgan gave approval for the FBI to seize information from Wilson’s Facebook account. The warrant was executed within four hours.
Facebook gave the FBI Wilson’s contact information, including birth date, cell phone number, friends, incoming and outgoing messages, and photos.
Wilson was charged in a criminal complaint Feb. 7 and indicted Tuesday on five bank robbery charges. He is free on a $10,000 unsecured bond.
“I’m innocent until proven guilty,” Wilson told The Detroit News. “They’re basically going off my clothes. Ralph Lauren is a popular clothing line.”
He’s since updated his Facebook photo. Wilson swapped the blue Polo hat and blue Polo sweatshirt for white ones featuring the iconic Polo horse.
Despite the search warrants, his Facebook information page was still public Thursday.
Technology challenging
Morgan, the federal magistrate judge, also approved two search warrant requests from the ATF late last year and in February to search the accounts of at least 16 people suspected of belonging to a Detroit area gang. The affidavit justifying the search remains sealed in federal court.
Even with the access, investigators are having a hard time keeping up with high-tech crooks. In February, an FBI official testified before a House subcommittee about the difficulty accessing electronic communications on social media sites and email even with court approval.
“The FBI and other government agencies are facing a potentially widening gap between our legal authority to intercept electronic communications pursuant to court order and our practical ability to actually intercept those communications,” FBI General Counsel Valerie Caproni testified.
Monitoring real-time Web-based conversations is particularly difficult, she said.
The FBI uses the term “Going Dark” to label the gap between having the authority to access electronic communications and the Internet service providers’ capability to gather the information. “This gap poses a growing threat to public safety,” Caproni testified.
Concerns over privacy
Information gleaned from the Internet raises constitutional and evidentiary issues that must be considered, including privacy and the right against unreasonable searches and seizures, said Chief U.S. District Judge Gerald E. Rosen, who also is an evidence professor at Wayne State University. Evidence obtained from the Internet and social media sites also raises issues about whether the information can be authenticated, he said.
“The Internet is the next frontier for the development of Fourth Amendment law,” Rosen said, referring to the amendment protecting against unreasonable searches and seizures.
A Facebook spokesman said the company receives a “significant volume of third-party data requests” that are reviewed individually for “legal sufficiency.”
“We do not comment publicly on data requests, even when we disclose the request to the user. We have this policy to respect privacy and avoid the risk that even acknowledging the existence of a request could wrongly harm the reputation of an individual,” said Andrew Noyes, Facebook manager of public policy communications. “We never turn over ’content’ records in response to U.S. legal process unless that process is a search warrant reviewed by a judge. We are required to regularly push back against overbroad requests for user records, but in most cases we are able to convince the party issuing legal process to withdraw the overbroad request, but if they do not, we fight the matter in court (and have a history of success in those cases.)”
Spokeswomen for the U.S. Attorney’s Office and FBI declined to discuss techniques used by investigators.
It is unclear exactly how many search warrants have been executed for Facebook accounts. But requests - in Maryland , New York , North Carolina , Virginia , California , Pennsylvania , Montana and Alabama - come amid a backlash from users who complained too much of their personal information was being disclosed . . . Click Here to Read More.
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Bree Olson dumps Charlie Sheen by text message, as Nova's Scott Dooley joins him on stage
From: NewsCore
April 24, 201
CHARLIE Sheen is down to one so-called "goddess," with the troubled star revealing his relationship woes during his stage show. Sheen opened his show in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, by telling the audience that porn actress Bree Olson broke up with him via text message, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The news comes after Olson, whose real name is Rachel Oberlin, last week denied reports that she had left the former Two and a Half Men star for a second time.
She and marijuana magazine model Natalie "Natty" Kenly were accompanying the actor on his 18-city "My Violent Torpedo of Truth/Defeat Is Not an Option" tour.
Despite the break-up Sheen seemed to be in good spirits at his show which included a question and answer session with audience members who later praised the actor's performance.
During the show Sheen also invited Lindsay Lohan to hang out with him after she was released from a Los Angeles jail on bail pending an appeal of a four-month jail sentence imposed for violating her probation stemming from a previous drink-driving charge.
"I would hug her and let her know it's gonna be OK," he said, when an audience member asked if he had words of wisdom for the troubled star.
Scott Dooley - a co-host of a breakfast show on Sydney radio station Nova - joined Sheen on stage along with former NBA player Dennis Rodman and comedian Jeff Ross.
Dooley, who formed an unlikely friendship with the star when they made a short film together, took to Twitter today following the show to express his relief at the success of the show.
"Just off stage with @charliesheen. Didn't get booed and I got to hug Dennis Rodman," he wrote.
"I'm going to have a drink tonight then it's back on the @QantasAirways plane to Australia. I have stories to tell and news," he added.
Sheen continues to travel the US on his tour which has received mixed reviews since kicking off in Detroit on April 2, when he was booed off stage.
Read more about Charlie Sheen dumped by text message at The Hollywood Reporter.
Boutique necklace lands Lindsay Lohan back in jail, then out on bail, after a day of drama
LINDSAY Lohan is back in the headlines for all the wrong reasons after a day of drama that began with a Los Angeles judge downgrading a jewellery store theft charge, and ended with the actress facing a jail sentence of 120 days.
Lohan, 24, was released from jail late at night after posting $US75,000 bail pending an appeal of the four-month jail sentence imposed for violating her probation stemming from a previous drunk driving charge.
She was taken from the courtroom to Lynwood Women's Facility — where she spent the next five hours — before being bailed out at 9:21pm local time.
Lohan was described as being "cooperative, cordial and optimistic" during her short stay by a jail captain, reported local news outlet KTLA.
Her day had begun with a court appearance — a preliminary hearing in a theft case in which it is alleged the Mean Girls star walked out of a jewellery boutique in January without paying for a $US2500 gold necklace.
Judge Stephanie Sautner reduced the felony theft charge to a misdemeanour and set a pre-trial hearing for May 11.
But the judge also said she felt the evidence indicated Lohan intended to steal the jewellery, and she ruled the actress had violated her 2007 drunk driving probation — sentencing her to 120 days in jail, plus 480 hours of community service, for the violation.
The community service is to be served at a women's centre and the city morgue, TMZ reported.
Judge Sautner said she chose those particular locations so that Lohan could see "how truly needy women and women who have fallen on real hard times have to live", according to the Los Angeles Times.
Prosecutor Danette Meyers said she would appeal the decision to downgrade the theft matter to a misdemeanour.
"The judge abused her discretion in this case," Ms Meyers said.
"It was a felony filing because the defendant was on probation… She has violated on numerous occasions… the evidence was incredibly strong."
Modestly dressed in a black long-sleeve T-shirt and navy high-waisted pants, with her blond hair swept into a loose updo and a white scarf around her neck, Lohan was greeted by the usual throng of paparazzi outside the Los Angeles Airport Courthouse when she arrived for the hearing.
The jewellery store owner that accused Lohan of stealing the necklace testified during the proceedings, saying the actress came into her boutique in Venice, California three times in one week before walking off with the pricey piece.
Sofia Kaman said Lohan spent about 45 minutes in the store on January 22 with her friend Patrick, who also accompanied the starlet on a January 15 visit to Kamofie & Company.
While Patrick was chatting with Ms Kaman, Lohan slipped out of the store wearing a gold necklace.
Ms Kaman said she realised the necklace was gone 10 minutes after the pair left.
However the store owner waited until the next evening to report the piece stolen because Lohan allegedly said she would be back the next day to purchase a ring. The actress, however, failed to show up on January 23.
Today's events were just the latest in a series of legal issues that have plagued the once in-demand actress.
She has been in and out of jail, rehab and courtrooms multiple times since 2007.
Lohan was sentenced in July last year to serve 90 days in jail and another 90 days in rehab for violating her probation in the drunk driving case.
However due to jail overcrowding, she served just 13 days before being released to a detox facility.
In 2007, she spent just 84 minutes in jail after police arrested her twice for cocaine possession while driving — in one instance crashing her Mercedes-Benz into a tree.
She completed a court-ordered spell in rehab for drug addiction in January.
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LOS ANGELES (AP) -- A judge sentenced Lindsay Lohan to 120 days in jail on Friday for a probation violation after hearing evidence against the actress in a theft case.
Lohan's attorney, Shawn Holley, said she will appeal the ruling, which will allow the actress to post bail.
Sautner also ordered Lohan to serve more than 400 hours of community service, including 300 hours at a women's center.
The ruling came after Sautner reduced Lohan's grand theft case down to a misdemeanor and after prosecutors gave their case against the actress.
It will be Lohan's fourth jail stint.
Sautner refused to dismiss the theft case against Lohan, but said she often sees more serious cases that get reduced to lesser charges.
"I see the intent here," Sautner said. "I see a level of brazenness with `Let me see what I can get away with here."'
Sautner ruled that prosecutors had shown that Lohan violated her probation, but also said in reducing the charge that she was going to give the actress "an opportunity." Lohan entered a not guilty plea Friday.
The "Mean Girls" star arrived at the courthouse wearing a black long-sleeve shirt, blue trousers and a scarf.
Lohan has been a courthouse fixture since last May when she missed a hearing in her drunken driving case. Since then, two judges have sent her to jail twice and rehab, also twice.
On Wednesday, Fiore Films announced it had cast the actress to play the wife of John Gotti Jr., the son of the infamous mob boss dubbed the "Teflon Don," in a biopic of the family. The project, title, "Gotti: Three Generations," is scheduled to begin shooting later this year in Lohan's native New York.
In an interview with the AP, Lohan said she was eager to put her court cases behind her and once again be known as an actress.
"I'm really excited to be back on set and clear up all the misinterpretations about me and show this is what I love to do," Lohan said.
"I think in the past, I had a lot of distractions," she said. "I've learned a lot. I've lived a lot. When I'm on set, it's about the film."
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TRIPOLI – NATO airstrikes targeted the center of Muammar Qaddafi's seat of power early Monday, destroying a multi-story library and office and badly damaging a reception hall for visiting dignitaries.
Qaddafi's whereabouts at the time of the attack on his sprawling Bab al-Azizya compound were unclear. A security official at the scene said four people were lightly hurt.
Monday's strike came after Qaddafi's forces unleashed a barrage of shells and rockets at the besieged rebel city of Misrata, in an especially bloody weekend that left at least 32 dead and dozens wounded.
The battle for Misrata, which has claimed hundreds of lives in the past two months, has become the focal point of Libya's armed rebellion against Qaddafi since fighting elsewhere is deadlocked.
Video of Misrata civilians being killed and wounded by Qaddafi's heavy weapons, including Grad rockets and tank shells, have spurred calls for more forceful international intervention to stop the bloodshed in the rebel-held city.
A Libyan man walks past the remnants of a shell fired by pro-Gadhafi forces during the siege of the rebel town of Ajdabiya, Libya Sunday, April 24, 2011. Rebel fighters drove Moammar Gadhafi's forces to the edge of the besieged western city of Misrata on Sunday, taking control of the main hospital where government troops had been holed up, a resident said.
In Washington on Sunday, three members of the Senate Armed Services Committee said that more should be done to drive Qaddafi out of power, including targeting his inner circle with air strikes. Qaddafi "needs to wake up every day wondering, 'Will this be my last?"' Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Republican on the committee, told CNN's "State of the Union."
Early in the campaign of airstrikes against Qaddafi, a cruise missile blasted an administration building in Bab al-Azizya last month, knocking down half the three-story building. The compound was also targeted in a U.S. bombing in April 1986, after Washington held Libya responsible for a blast at a Berlin disco that killed two U.S. servicemen.
At least two missiles struck Bab al-Azizya early Monday, and the booms could be heard miles (kilometers) away.
A multi-story building that guards said served as Qaddafi's library and office was turned into a pile of twisted metal and broken concrete slabs. Dozens of Qaddafi supporters climbed atop the ruins, raising Libya's green flag and chanting in support of their leader.
A second building, where Qaddafi received visiting dignitaries, suffered blast damage. The main door was blown open, glass shards were scattered across the ground and picture frames were knocked down.
Just two weeks ago, Qaddafi had received an African Union delegation led by South African President Jacob Zuma in the ceremonial building, which was furnished with sofas and chandeliers. The delegation had called for an immediate cease-fire and dialogue between the rebels and the government.
NATO's mandate from the U.N. is to try to protect civilians in Libya, split into a rebel-run east and a western area that remains largely under Qaddafi's control. While the coalition's airstrikes have delivered heavy blows to Qaddafi's army, they have not halted attacks on Misrata, a city of 300,000 people besieged by Qaddafi loyalists for two months.
Still, in recent days, the rebels' drive to push Qaddafi's men out of the city center gained momentum.
Late last week, they forced government snipers out of high-rise buildings. On Sunday, rebels took control of the main hospital, the last position of Libyan troops in the center of Misrata, said a city resident, who only gave his first name, Abdel Salam, for fear of reprisals. Throughout the day, government forces fired more than 70 rockets at the city, he said.
"Now Qaddafi's troops are on the outskirts of Misrata, using rocket launchers," Abdel Salam said.
A Misrata rebel, 37-year-old Lutfi, said there had been 300-400 Qaddafi fighters in the main hospital and in the surrounding area that were trying to melt into the local population.
"They are trying to run way," Lutfi said of the soldiers, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals. "They are pretending to be civilians. They are putting on sportswear."
Ali Misbah, a captured Libyan soldier who had been wounded in the leg, was held under guard in a tent in the parking lot of the Al Hikmeh Hospital, one of the city's smaller medical centers.
Misbah, 25, said morale was low among Qaddafi's troops. "Recently, our spirit has collapsed and the forces that were in front of us escaped and left us alone," he said.
Misbah said he and his fellow soldiers were told that they were fighting against al-Qaida militants, not ordinary Libyans who took up arms against Qaddafi.
"They misled us," Misbah said of the government.
A senior Libyan government official has said the military is withdrawing from the fighting in Misrata, ostensibly to give a chance to tribal chiefs in the area to negotiate with the rebels. The official, Deputy Foreign Minister Khaled Kaim, said the tribal chiefs were ready to send armed supporters to fight the rebels unless they lay down their weapons.
Kaim also claimed that the army has been holding its fire since Friday.
Asked about the continued shelling on Misrata, Libyan government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim said the army was responding to attacks by rebels. He insisted that most of Misrata was still under government control.
Rebels on Sunday dismissed government claims that tribes in the area were siding with Qaddafi and that troops were redeploying voluntarily.
"It's not a withdrawal. It's a defeat that they want to turn into propaganda," said Dr. Abdel-Basit Abu Mzirig, head of the Misrata medical committee. "They were besieging the city and then they had to leave."
In addition to the casualties, thousands of people, many of them foreign workers, have been stranded in Misrata. Hundreds of migrants, along with wounded Libyans, have been evacuated in aid vessels through the port in recent days.
One of those wounded, Misrata resident Osama al-Shahmi, said Qaddafi's forces have been attacking the city with rockets. "They have no mercy. They are pounding the city hard," said al-Shahmi after being rescued from Misrata.
"Everyone in Misrata is convinced that the dictator must go," said al-Shahmi, 36, a construction company administrator who was wounded by shrapnel. His right leg wrapped in bandages, al-Shahmi flashed a victory sign as he was put into a waiting ambulance upon arrival in Benghazi.
In Rome, Pope Benedict XVI offered an Easter prayer for Libya. He told a crowd of more than 100,000 Easter pilgrims in St. Peter's Square that he hopes "diplomacy and dialogue replace arms" in Libya and that humanitarian aid will get through to those in need.
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Kurt Nimmo Infowars.com
April 24, 2011
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Thomas Gordon Jr. of Philadelphia, a TSA “screener,” was arrested on March 24 and charged with distributing more than 100 images of child pornography via Facebook. He allegedly uploaded explicit pictures of young girls and also is said to have posted a photograph of himself in his TSA uniform, Fox News reported on Saturday. Gordon was arrested by Homeland Security and is being held without bail.
Federal agents also note Gordon routinely searched airline passengers, despite the fact the searches are unconstitutional and illegal. A growing number of district attorneys around the country have indicated they may charge TSA employees with sexual assault.
The Drudge Report linked the story and it was reported by Fox News, the Philadelphia Inquirer, and a handful of other news sites, but was virtually ignored by the larger corporate media. Ryan Hamilton Jr., writing for Gather, says it is “very shocking that the TSA hasn’t alerted the public about these infractions…. This shocking news has come out as the Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) tries to figure out what to do about incidents such as these.”
In fact, instances of sexual perversion and criminal activity on the part of TSA employees is becoming routine.
In February of 2010, another TSA employee, Charles Bennett of Winter Garden, Florida, was arrested and charged with molestation of a minor after police say he tried to keep a 15 year old girl as a sex slave. On his MySpace page, Bennett called himself “Master Charles” and said he was into submissive females and claimed he is a master of bondage dominance sadism and masochism.
Sean Shanahan, a TSA worker at Logan International airport, was arrested last year after he allegedly sent sexually explicit text messages to a 14 year old girl. The inappropriate contact escalated and Shanahan had physical sexual contact with the girl at his home in February over school break, according to news reports.
In October, it was reported that an Amarillo, Texas, woman filed a lawsuit against the federal government after TSA agents allegedly humiliated her by publicly exposing her breasts during an “extended search” at an airport in Corpus Christi. The suit also claims that other TSA employees continued to joke and laugh about the incident for an extended period of time. The woman filed an administrative claim against the TSA, but the agency never responded, thus prompting her lawsuit.
In addition to sexual perverts, the TSA hires violent psychopaths. Earlier this year, an Indianapolis TSA employee was arrested after he put a man in headlock and punched him six times in the face during a parking dispute.
TSA agents have bragged about the power they wield over the public. In January of 2010, a TSA agent in Los Angeles proclaimed “I am god, I’m in charge.” The agent was arrested after making the delusional claim, according to reports.
Violent TSA agents have also attacked each other. In May, 2010, a Miami TSA agent attacked a colleague who repeatedly made fun of his small penis after the security screener walked through a radiation emitting naked body scanner that showed his genitalia, according to Miami-Dade police.
The TSA has a habit of hiring not only sexual perverts and violent psychopaths, but other assorted criminals as well. In February, two TSA employees were arrested for stealing around $40,000 in cash from a bag that was checked through a security line at John F. Kennedy Airport.
The agency admits that over the last three years alone there have been 12 similar cases of thefts involving the removal of valuables and/or cash from baggage.
A few days before this case, a Newark TSA agent pleaded guilty to accepting bribes and kickbacks from a colleague who regularly stole money from passengers during sexual molestation pat-downs.
In Detroit, a TSA agent was arrested for participating in a series of fast food restaurant robberies. Quantrez Rapheal Sawyer was employed as a “passenger screener/security officer,” according to a news report.
In response to repeated instances of criminal behavior and sexual perversion on the part of its employees, the TSA claims it conducts significant background checks, including criminal history, before candidates are offered a job with the government.
It should come as no surprise the TSA has such a large number of violent criminals and sexual perverts on staff. Government agencies assigned to police state roles invariably attract violent and pathological scum. It can be argued the government in fact specifically recruits violent people.
Lenin and later Stalin’s secret police recruited thugs and psychopaths to terrorize, torture, and murder anybody who resisted the state. Early Bolshevik Victor Serge described the process in his book, Memoirs of a Revolutionary.
Mao unleashed violent and murderous members of the Red Guard – mostly students and other ideologically brainwashed young people – on the public at large during the so-called Cultural Revolution.
Hitler’s SS recruited from the violent Freikorps, specifically the Marinebrigade Ehrhardt, a handpicked selection of street fighting thugs. The Nazis envisioned a legion of SS-Lords to rule over subjects of the Lebensraum, or land captured by the German army for the expansion of the racist Third Reich.
Police states invariably rely on criminals and violent thugs to intimidate the public. The TSA, of course, is not largely comprised of sadistic minions, but bureaucrats and low-level employees looking for a steady paycheck. The same can more or less be said for the Soviet era police and many ranking members of Hitler’s SS.
However, it does take a certain kind of individual to perform non-stop pat-downs that are nearly indistinguishable from sexual molestation. It should come as no surprise a large percentage of them run afoul of the law or end up accused of sex crimes.
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Libya: western leaders call for Nato to target Gaddafi
Senior western leaders called for Nato to adopt an assassination policy against Col Muammar Gaddafi to salvage the bombing campaign in Libya from a descent into stalemate.
By Toby Harnden, Washington and Robert Winnett www.telegraph.co.uk 24 Apr 2011
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The calls came as Col Gaddafi was reported to have strengthened his grip on power by repatriating billions of dollars in overseas assets that should have been frozen by UN sanctions.
On Sunday, there was growing pressure on Coalition forces to directly target Col Gaddafi with military strikes.
Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican member of the Senate Armed Services committee, said that the quickest way to end the emerging stalemate was to "cut the head of the snake off". He said: "The people around Gaddafi need to wake up every day wondering, 'Will this be my last?'
Senator John McCain, who visited Libya at the weekend, also said that the Libyan dictator should be targeted but argued that it was more important to increase American firepower over Libya. He said: "It's pretty obvious to me that the US has got to play a greater role on the air power side. Our Nato allies neither have the assets, nor frankly the will - there's only six countries of the 28 in Nato that are actively engaged in this situation."
William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, also on Sunday refused to rule out using remote-controlled American drones to assassinate Col Gaddafi. Mr Hague said "who and what is a legitimate target depends on their behaviour." However, he denied that there was a stalemate in Libya and ruled out proposals to partition the country.
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HERMANN MO NEWS HAS HAD MORE UNIQUE VISITORS THAN ANY OTHER GASCONADE COUNTY WEB SITE SINCE JANUARY 2011!!!
Another local web site is back to claiming SUPER ABNORMAL PAGE VIEWS...Page views are easy to manipulate do not be conned, they are just trying to sell over priced ads. "Unique Visitor Counts" are the REAL NUMBERS!!!
Another local web site is touting their Unique Visitor Counts, well HermannMoNews.blogspot.com has been beating them with more 'Monthly Unique Visitors' since January 2011. We have documented our numbers via statcounter.com which we will be happy to share with the public upon request just email us at: hitmethankyou@hotmail.com
Below are Hermann Mo News UNIQUE VISITOR milestones achieved in March 2011:
15,000 Unique Visitors reached on March 8, 2011 16,000 Unique Visitors reached on March 10, 2011 17,000 Unique Visitors reached on March 14, 2011 18,000 Unique Visitors reached on March 17, 2011 19,000 Unique Visitors reached on March 20, 2011 20,000 Unique Visitors reached on March 24, 2011 As you can see we have been growing a lot 'Unique Visits' in the month March. We thank all our visitors and readers for your continued support. If you ever have questions or suggestions please email us at hitmethankyou@hotmail.com
We love suggestions, and are constantly trying to improve our web site, your suggestion help us tremendously!!!
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Beautiful spring pear tree blooms! (Photo by Kathleen Mccarthy)
Another local web site likes to claim larger than true numbers. They recently ran a story celebrating their 4th anniversary on the web, yet they started publishing in 2008. When I do the math, that equals 3 YEARS not 4. LOL
The above world map shows Hermann Mo News' Unique Visitors at 3:38 AM on March 18, 2011. Over 70 world-wide in the middle of the night!!! We checked another Gasconade county web site that has a counter that claims current visitors online and they had a total of 19 visitors at 3:38 AM. The Only TRUE NUMBER THAT MATTERS IS UNIQUE VISITORS...All other numbers are just used to sell inflated priced ads!!!
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April 25, 2011
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Tsunami waves topped 60 feet or more as they broke onshore following Japan’s earthquake, according to some of the first surveys measuring the impact along the afflicted nation’s entire coast. Some waves grew to more than 100 feet high, breaking historic records, as they squeezed between fingers of land surrounding port towns.
The tsunami was born when the magnitude-9.0 earthquake struck March 11 about 45 miles off Japan’s coast. The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake lifted and then dropped a slab of seafloor 50 miles wide and more than 180 miles long. The force shifted the seafloor nearly 80 feet westward above the quake center.
Within a half-hour, the waves arrived on Japan’s coast, plateaus of water that surged up to six miles inland and unleashed much of the devastation that killed about 14,300 people, with another 12,000 still missing. The new estimates on wave heights from the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission, gathered from Japanese university surveys, show the biggest waves hit the hilly harbor towns north of where the quake was centered. The surge grew in between inlet hills to 124 feet high at the fishing port of Koborinai.
“Waves this high are completely predictable after such a large earthquake. But they are still almost unimaginable,” says tsunami geologist Jody Bourgeois of the University of Washington in Seattle, who was in Japan when the quake struck.
Japan’s science ministry has dispatched more than 200 tsunami experts to map where and how high the waves came during the tsunami.
North of the city of Sendai, University of Southern California tsunami expert Costas Synolakis, found that the surge exceeded 40 foot depths a quarter-mile inland, and still reached over 26 feet high about a half-mile inland.
“We have only seen such extremes ‘recently’ in Banda Aceh during the 2004 tsunami,” Costas says, by e-mail. That 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami killed more than 230,000 people in 14 southeast Asian countries.
Building on an analysis released earlier this month, University of Tokyo tsunami expert Yoshinobu Tsuji, reports the wave heights exceeded those of a record 1896 tsunami in Japan.
Although wave heights were lower on the Japanese coast south of the epicenter of the March 11 quake, they were still high enough to top an 18-foot sea wall at Japan’s crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant, sparking an ongoing crisis there.
Although terrible, the preliminary estimate also finds a better-than 92%survival rate for people living in coastal towns hit by the waves, Bourgeois says. “In that sense, given the magnitude of the unexpectedly large earthquake, things could have been even worse,” she says.
Security researchers unveiled this week that Apple's iPhone was actively logging the whereabouts of users, storing location data into an easily assessable file on the device.
But it's not just iPhones that are keeping track of their users. Apple's iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, the iPhone 4, and iPad models are also keeping track of consumers whereabouts. Mac computers running Snow Leopard and even Windows computers running Safari 5 are being watched. The question is why? The company has remained silent after researchers Alasdair Allan and Pete Warden revealed this Wednesday that the iPhone was storing logs of users' geographic coordinates in a hidden file.
We're not sure why Apple is gathering this data, but it's clearly intentional, as the database is being restored across backups, and even device migrations," the security experts wrote in their blogs. While Apple has since remained tight-lipped on the matter, not responding to any media-inquires, another privacy snafu last year gives insight into what the company is doing with the information.
In June 2010, Congressmen Edward J. Markey, D-Mass., and Joe Barton, R-Texas wrote a letter to Apple CEO Steve Jobs inquiring about Apple's privacy policy and location-based services
In response the company's general counsel Bruce Sewall wrote a letter explaining its practice, and shedding light on the rationale the company uses to monitor users.
"To provide the high quality products and services that its customers demand, Apple must have access to the comprehensive location-based information," Sewall told Congress in the letter.
After emphasizing Apple's commitment to users' privacy, Sewall said that to provide these location-based services, Apple, its partners and licensees, may collect, use and share customers' precise location data, including GPS information, nearby cell towers and neighboring Wi-Fi networks.
While the security researchers Allan and Warden did not confirm whether the devices were actively sending data back to Apple, Sewall said that it was within Apple's right to do so.
"By using any location-based services on your iPhone, you agree and consent to Apple's and its partners' and licensees' transmission, collection, maintenance, processing and use of your location data to provide such products and services," Sewall's letter reads, citing Apple's End User Agreement.
But he added that the information is collected anonymously and the devices give users controls for disabling the features.
In addition to giving Apple customers the ability to turn off all location features with one "on/off" toggle switch, Apple requires applications to get explicit customer approval when it asks for location information for the first time.
Apple also stores the location information in a database only accessibly to Apple, the letter says. This may be the case for data sent to Apple, but Allan and Warden were able to create a program that accessed and mapped user locations from un-encrypted data on the iPhons they examined.
But though Apple says that its location data practices support the services its customers want, analysts and activists say the practice still raises serious questions.
Christina Warren Mashable
April 20, 2011
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Two security researchers have discovered that Apple’s iPhone keeps track of a user’s location and saves that information to a file that is stored both on the device and on a user’s computer when they sync or back it up in iTunes. The researchers, Pete Warden and Alasdair Allan, discovered the hidden file while collaborating on a potential data visualization project. “At first we weren’t sure how much data was there, but after we dug further and visualised the extracted data, it became clear that there was a scary amount of detail on our movements,” Warden told The Guardian. You can watch Allan and Warden’s discussion about the data and how it can be surfaced in this video:
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Hidden Tracking Files Found in iPhone, iPad
Published: Thursday, 21 Apr 2011
Apple faced questions on Wednesday about the security of its iPhone and iPad after a report that the devices regularly record their locations in a hidden file.
The report came from a technology conference in San Francisco, where two computer programmers presented research showing that the iPhone and 3G versions of the iPad began logging users’ locations a year ago, when Apple [AAPL352.6110.20(+2.98%)] updated its mobile operating system.
After customers upgraded the software, a new hidden file began periodically storing location data, apparently gleaned from nearby cellphone towers and Wi-Fi networks, along with the time.
The data is stored on a person’s phone or iPad, but when the device is synced to a computer, the file is copied over to the hard drive, the programmers said. The data is not normally encrypted; although users can encrypt their information when they sync their devices, few do.
To some privacy advocates, the storing of the data was a clear breach.
“The secretive collection of location data crosses the privacy line,” said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a privacy policy organization based in Washington.
“Apple should know better than to track iPhone users in this way.” Others said the discovery of the hidden file was unlikely to have a major practical impact on privacy and security.
“It is more symbolic than anything else,” said Tim O’Reilly, a longtime technology pundit and founder of O’Reilly Media.
“It is one more sign of how devices are collecting data about us and potentially sharing it with others. This is the future. We have to figure out how to deal with it.”
Law enforcement officials can already get this type of location information from cellphone companies, Mr. O’Reilly said; there are, however, conflicting rulings in federal courts about whether they need a search warrant.
But sitting on a home computer, the data could now be more vulnerable to access by hackers or others, he said. And information about a person’s locations over time could be accessible to strangers if a phone or iPad was lost or if it was attacked by malware.
The news of what appeared to be a security problem immediately ricocheted across the Internet as bloggers on technology and Apple-centered sites debated the many questions left unanswered by the report.
It is unclear, for example, whether Apple is gaining access to the information in any way. It is also unclear how precise the location data is and why it is being stored at all.
The programmers said they had asked Apple’s product security team about their findings but did not receive a response. Apple also did not respond to a request for comment from The New York Times.
The report even attracted attention from political figures, like Senator Al Franken, Democrat of Minnesota, who sent Apple’s chief executive, Steven P. Jobs, a letter asking why Apple was “secretly compiling” the data and what it would be used for.
Some privacy experts said the issue was not the legality of storing this information but whether Apple was playing fair with its customers.
“Collecting this data is not illegal, but it does matter whether or not this is explicitly spelled out in Apple’s terms of use,” said Christina Gagnier, a lawyer specializing in privacy and copyright.
“Apple constantly changes their privacy policy, and it’s questionable whether most users are aware this is happening.”
Apple has an obligation to its customers to allow them to opt out of being tracked, said Ian Glazer of Gartner Research, who is a director in the company’s identity and privacy group.
“There is no way to really turn this tracking off,” he said. “It needs to be visually obvious, or in the settings, to see that this is happening on your phone.”
Alasdair Allan and Pete Warden presented the paper at the O’Reilly Where 2.0 conference, a gathering of experts on location technology.
Mr. Allan said in a blog post that beyond the issue of storing the information is the question of “how Apple intends to use it — or not.”
Mr. Allan, who has written books that teach people how to program, also said that the data being collected would be transferred to a new product when customers buy a new phone or iPad, and then sync it.
Mr. Warden, a former Apple employee, posted a free downloadable application on his Web site for Mac computers that allows users to see their stored location data on a map.
Whatever the privacy implications, the report was a burst of bad publicity for Apple on a day when it again reported stellar earnings results.
“It doesn’t matter how Apple explains its way out of this, just the fact that consumers know that their phone is being tracked is a very big deal,” said Chenxi Wang, a vice president of Forrester Research who specializes in security and risk.
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The record for flooding on the Gasconade River at Hazelgreen is nearly 34 feet. Laclede County Emergency Manager John Ayres tells KTTS News that by the time this wet spell ends, it could get pretty close to there again. He says they've had to do some limited evacuations in the Falcon area and preparatory evacuations in the Hazelgreen area. Ayres says there are just a few people that live in these areas on a regular basis, and they were ready to go once emergency crews gave the word.
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