GPS gives a more accurate location, but non-GPS location is reasonably accurate too.

http://www.fcc.gov/guides/wireless-911-services

“Phase II E911 rules require wireless service providers to provide more precise location information . . . accurate to within 50 to 300 meters depending upon the type of location technology used. ”

Some suggestions here on ways to protect your location information:

https://safermobile.org/resource/geolocation-primer/

Here’s the Herlong handbook:

http://www.bop.gov/locations/institutions/her/HER_aohandbook.pdf

5. You have the right to visit and correspond with family members and friends, and correspond with members of the news media in keeping. with Bureau of Prisons rules and institution guidelines.

9.You have the right to a wide range of reading materials for educational purposes and for your own enjoyment.

There are lengthy lists of rules and potential punishments for breaking them.

Also directions to the facility at the end.

http://www.bop.gov/DataSource/execute/dsFacilityAddressLoc?start=y&facilityCode=her

Phone: 530-827-8000
Fax: 530-827-8024
E-mail address2: HER/EXECASSISTANT@BOP.GOV

Robert Allen Stanford was convicted in a federal court a few weeks ago for crimes similar to Bernie Madoff’s.

Here are some findings from an SEC Inspector General’s report:

http://www.sec.gov/news/studies/2010/oig-526.pdf

” . . . the SEC’s Fort Worth office was aware since 1997 that Robert Allen Stanford was likely operating a Ponzi scheme, having come to that conclusion a mere two years after Stanford Group Company (“SGC”), Stanford’s investment adviser, registered with the SEC in 1995. We found that over the next 8 years, the SEC’s Fort Worth Examination group conducted four examinations of Stanford’s operations, finding in each examination that the CDs could not have been “legitimate,” and that it was “highly unlikely” that the returns Stanford claimed to generate could have been achieved with the purported conservative investment approach. Fort Worth examiners dutifully conducted examinations of Stanford in 1997, 1998, 2002 and 2004, concluding in each case that Stanford’s CDs were likely a Ponzi scheme or a similar fraudulent scheme. The only significant difference in the Examination group’s findings over the years was that the potential fraud grew exponentially, from $250 million to $1.5 billion.

While the Fort Worth Examination group made multiple efforts after each examination to convince the Fort Worth Enforcement program (“Enforcement”) to open and conduct an investigation of Stanford, no meaningful effort was made by Enforcement to investigate the potential fraud or to bring an action to attempt to stop it until late 2005. In 1998, Enforcement opened a brief inquiry, but then closed it after only 3 months, when Stanford failed to produce documents evidencing the fraud in response to a voluntary document request from the SEC. In 2002, no investigation was opened even after the examiners specifically identified multiple violations of securities laws by Stanford in an examination report. In 2003, after receiving three separate complaint letters about Stanford’s operations, Enforcement decided not to open an investigation or even an inquiry, and did not follow up to obtain more information about the complaints.

In late 2005, after a change in leadership in Enforcement and in response to the continuing pleas by the Fort Worth Examination group, who had been watching the potential fraud grow in examination after examination, Enforcement finally agreed to seek a formal order from the Commission to investigate Stanford.

. . . The OIG did not find that the reluctance on the part of the SEC’s Fort Worth Enforcement group to investigate Stanford was related to any improper professional, social or financial relationship on the part of any former or current SEC employee.

. . . The OIG investigation also found that the former head of Enforcement in Fort Worth, who played a significant role in multiple decisions over the years to quash investigations of Stanford, sought to represent Stanford on three separate occasions after he left the Commission, and in fact represented Stanford briefly in 2006 before he was informed by the SEC Ethics Office that it was improper to do so.”

The problem here isn’t that the Fort Worth SEC office was “bought off”. It’s more of a problem common to many or most bureaucratic organizations. The enforcement side wanted to look good on paper. They wanted “slam dunk” cases. They didn’t want to invest large amounts of manpower and resources for long periods if they couldn’t guarantee success.

This isn’t much different from your local district attorney’s office.

The scope of the crime:

http://www.justice.gov/usao/txs/1News/Releases/2012%20March/120306%20Stanford_print.html

“A Houston federal jury today convicted Robert Allen Stanford, the former Board of Directors Chairman of Stanford International Bank (SIB), for orchestrating a 20-year investment fraud scheme in which he misappropriated $7 billion from SIB to finance his personal businesses.

. . . After returning a guilty verdict on March 6, 2012, the jury heard testimony about 29 financial accounts located abroad that are worth approximately $330 million. . . . Any forfeited funds obtained by the United States would be returned to the fraud victims.”

The morale in the investigations side of the Fort Worth SEC office must be pretty low.

The club:

http://www.fas.org/programs/ssp/nukes/nuclearweapons/nukestatus.html

Margaret — no irony intended, THANK YOU for that response to the “thank you for your service” meme.

I agree totally (from a much earlier generation).

If the server needs to be constantly stroked, where is the service?

The whole reflexive “thank you” shtick is just one more means of mind control, like replacing “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” for the 7th inning stretch. I change channels for that brief minute.

The large growth in per capita income in North Dakota is likely due to oil revenues.

That’s not just pay to oil field workers, but royalties to land owners, many of whom are family farmers.

Absolutely right.

I deeply regret having voted for Obama the first time, the first winner I voted for since LBJ.

And I would vote for LBJ again, if he were still alive and running.

California may be only 6th place in negative equity, but it’s got a commanding lead in new foreclosures.

http://www.realtytrac.com/trendcenter/trend.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=cz7BfenWqh8

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/03/us-protests-parade-idUSTRE8010QQ20120103

“Three activists who were seated along parade the route did manage to unfurl a banner that read “Stop Foreclosures” across from the television news cameras when a Wells Fargo-sponsored carriage passed by before police quickly took it down.”

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2081002/Occupy-float-Rose-Parade-70-ft-plastic-octopus-plastic-bags.html

LA Times has several photos here:

http://framework.latimes.com/2012/01/02/rose-parade/#/0

http://latimesphoto.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/rose-parade-2012-45.jpg

http://latimesphoto.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/rose-parade-2012-46.jpg

http://latimesphoto.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/rose-parade-2012-48.jpg

http://latimesphoto.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/rose-parade-2012-04.jpg

Just saw “Another Earth” via Netflix, and it’s very good.

Brit Marling co-wrote the screenplay, and comments on why she took up writing:

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1779870/bio

Given enough time, the graphs should settle out at 99% and 1%.

Then we’ll know who really funds Congress, even without putting logos on their work clothes.

Real campaign finance reform may be the only way out. And not looking likely soon.

I bought a hardbound copy of the book for $1 a few years ago, at a thrift store or maybe the public library bookstore. Sad to see it being remaindered, considering all the effort put into research, organization, and writing.

Beyond the hot coffee case, there are a lot of examples of people working on the corporate side who come to grief and see the error of their ways a bit late.

A few purchase options (or try your local library):

http://www.alibris.com/booksearch?keyword=mencimer&mtype=B&hs.x=0&hs.y=0

http://www.powells.com/biblio/17-9780743277006-2

http://www.amazon.com/Blocking-Courthouse-Door-Republican-Corporate/dp/0743277015/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_1

Photo source:

http://theatlantic.tumblr.com/post/5397338043/thenewrepublic-motherjones-in-addition-to

The song was written by the late Townes Van Zandt. Here’s a video, introduced by Nanci Griffith, another treasure:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtzgwNDZAs4

Lots of covers of the song, haven’t heard a bad one. Here’s Willie Nelson and Bob Dylan:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UsR0Y-sWk-E

For-Profit Colleges: Undercover Testing Finds Colleges Encouraged Fraud and Engaged in Deceptive and Questionable Marketing Practices, GAO-10-948T, August 4, 2010,
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-10-948T

“Admissions representative told our undercover applicant that barbers can earn $150,000 to $250,000 a year, though that would be extremely unusual. The BLS reports that 90 percent of barbers make less than $43,000 a year. In Washington, D.C., 90 percent of barbers make less than $17,000 per year. He said, ‘The money you can make, the potential is astronomical.’ “

Makers vs. takers . . .

You’ve got to admit that the right wing is awfully well disciplined in picking a few slogans and talking points and parroting them ad nauseum. Colbert does a great job of juxtaposing video clips of that every night (e.g., “job-killing regulation” regurgitated by Palin, McCain, etc.).

The “makers-takers” dichotomy may originate here (though he probably cribbed it from somewhere, being more of a taker than a maker):

http://www.amazon.com/Makers-Takers-conservatives-generously-materialistic/dp/038551350X

Of course Murdoch’s favorite paper echoes the mantra:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704050204576219073867182108.html

“grow the economy that makes things, not the sector that takes things”

Of course, levying taxes is “taking things”. Whereas creating CDOs is “making things” — like a Depression.

Minor quibble — it’s not really correct to refer to these machines as robots — neither from the definition of the word:

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/robot

“robot
noun

1. a machine that resembles a human and does mechanical, routine tasks on command.
2. a person who acts and responds in a mechanical, routine manner, usually subject to another’s will; automaton.
3. any machine or mechanical device that operates automatically with humanlike skill.

Origin: < Czech, coined by Karel Čapek in the play R.U.R. (1920) from the base robot-, as in robota compulsory labor, robotník peasant owing such labor"

nor from the the sci-fi version:

http://www.asimovlaws.com/

"Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics:

A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or the Second Law."

The drones used recently in the Middle East and South West Asia have no living creatures onboard, but they are remotely controlled rather than autonomous.

Around 40 years ago, they were called RPVs, for Remotely Piloted Vehicles. A few decades later, they became UAVs, for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles. A short time later, the meaning of the "U" was changed to the gender neutral "Uninhabited".

Maybe that could be slightly modified to "Uninhibited".

Thank you, Bluewombat, for the reference to another art work of which I had never heard, but for which Google returns 37,000+ web sites.

A few years ago I stumbled upon “Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground.” Never heard of it either. Fortunately, Carl Sagan and associates were more broadly educated, and placed it onboard Voyager II.

My personal favorite example of the social worth of art revolves around the convoluted tale in “Catch 22″ involving General Peckham, ex-PFC Wintergreen, and T.S. Eliot.