Tech problem: Google's "Add Images" tool isn't working -- so no daylee picture.
UP-FRONT FRAUD NUGGET!!
[Forwarded from one of our regular readers]
JURY Duty Scam
For yourself, your elderly parents, and your grown children. This has been verified by the FBI (their link is also included below). It is spreading fast so be prepared should you get this call. Most of us take those summonses for jury duty seriously, but enough people skip out on their civic duty that a new and ominous kind of fraud has surfaced.
The caller claims to be a jury DUTY coordinator. If you protest that you never received a summons for jury duty, the Scammer asks you for your Social Security number and date of birth so he or she can verify the information and cancel the arrest warrant. Give out any of this information and bingo, your identity was just stolen.
The fraud has been reported so far in 11 states, including Oklahoma , Illinois , and Colorado, AZ and more. This (swindle) is particularly insidious because they use intimidation over the phone to try to bully people into giving information by pretending they are with the court system.
The FBI and the federal court system have issued nationwide alerts on their web sites, warning consumers about the fraud.
Check it out here:http://www.fbi.gov/page2/june06/jury_scams060206.htm
Back to our regularly scheduled news nuggets:
More on Friday's headliner [at least it was headliner here]:
Software Smart Bomb Aimed at Iran from Discovery News
"A new cyber weapon may have been designed to find and sabotage a nuclear facility in Iran."
Finally the New York Times gets to the story HERE.
Reuters also has some interesting followup:
Of course they're going to say this. The fact that they released ANY news on this tells you this was more than a few personal laptops getting infected.
"A computer virus that experts said may have been created by a state did not affect Iran's nuclear plant or government systems, but did hit computers of staff at the plant and Internet providers, officials said on Sunday."
Our on-the-money pundit for the day!
Step Up to the Plate: Rising Powers Need to Act like Powers (Fareed Zakaria) from Newsweek
"The newly rising powers—China, India, Brazil—rightly insist that they be more centrally involved in the structures of power and global decision making. But when given the opportunity, do they step up to the plate and act as great powers with broad interests? On trade? Energy use? Climate change? No. … Says Shimon Peres, “You can call yourself a decision maker, but if you are not ready to donate, to sacrifice life, to take risks—not because your country is being attacked but because peace is being put into danger—then it’s more of a perception than reality.”"
I agree with Zakaria -- but it raises several interesting questions. Are up-and-comers REALLY going to focus on that last set of issues? Or are those issues simply a global convention adopted since, say World War II? Will Chinese leaders ever really care about peace in Africa -- or anywhere where their vital interest aren't directly at stake? I'm skeptical.
I agree with Zakaria -- but it raises several interesting questions. Are up-and-comers REALLY going to focus on that last set of issues? Or are those issues simply a global convention adopted since, say World War II? Will Chinese leaders ever really care about peace in Africa -- or anywhere where their vital interest aren't directly at stake? I'm skeptical.
Their Moon Shot and Ours (Thomas Friedman) from the New York Times
"China is doing moon shots. Yes, that’s plural. When I say “moon shots” I mean big, multibillion-dollar, 25-year-horizon, game-changing investments. … Not to worry. America today also has its own multibillion-dollar, 25-year-horizon, game-changing moon shot: fixing Afghanistan. This contrast is not good."
Fiscal Crises and Imperial Collapses: Historical Perspective on Current Predicaments (Niall Ferguson) from the Peterson Institute for International Economics
"What I want to emphasize this evening is the nonlinearity of fiscal history, the suddenness with which things can go wrong in the realm of public finance and from there, to the realm of geopolitics."
See Ferguson's slides along with the video feed.
'Polarities' Old Hat in Newest of World Orders (editorial) from the Irish Times
"Multipolarity is too statist for this century, he argues, in agreement with Haass about the dispersal of power. ... The idea that the EU will become a pole should be tested rather than asserted. It will be a trans-Pacific rather than a trans-Atlantic century, making that a much greater priority for EU policy."
Downhill With the GOP (Paul Krugman) from the New York Times
"Once upon a time, a Latin American political party promised to help motorists save money on gasoline. How? By building highways that ran only downhill. … For these days one of America’s two great political parties routinely makes equally nonsensical promises. Never mind the war on terror, the party’s main concern seems to be the war on arithmetic. And this party has a better than even chance of retaking at least one house of Congress this November. Banana republic, here we come.
For Many Youths, Hunting Loses the Battle for Attention from the New York Times
"Whether it is about killing or simply about being out in the woods, in the cold and wet of fall dragging a big animal over steep terrain, hunting is just not cool to many young people."
FUTURIST NUGGET!!
What Will Future Generations Condemn Us For? (Op-Ed) from the New York Times
"Looking back at such horrors, it is easy to ask: What were people thinking? Yet, the chances are that our own descendants will ask the same question, with the same incomprehension, about some of our practices today. Is there a way to guess which ones?
PRESIDENTIAL HISTORY NUGGET!!
When Kennedy Met Nixon: The Real Story (Ted Sorenson) from the New York Times
"Six myths have persisted throughout the innumerable reports on this historic confrontation. As someone who helped Kennedy prepare and negotiate the terms for the Chicago debate, I’d like to set the half-century-old record straight."
ANOTHER PRESIDENTIAL HISTORY NUGGET!!
From Seat of Power, Battling Many Crises: A Review of Jimmy Carter's Diaries from the New York Times
"Mr. Carter’s 25th book, “White House Diary,” the edited and annotated journals of his turbulent years in office, reminds one of the plagues visited on him, many beyond his control, and the way he stumbled, suffered, tried to do the right thing, tried to understand his errors and seemed to believe that politics in a fallen world doomed him to being unappreciated."
Waterfront Jungle: A Review of Dark Harbor: The War for the New York Waterfront from the New York Times
"Say you’re a New York City newspaper reporter and the year is 1948. Your editor tells you to go down to the docks and check out the latest in a string of murders. For some reporters, the task would have meant an afternoon of work. For Malcolm Johnson, the New York Sun reporter who took this particular handoff from his boss, the assignment led deep into the world of organized crime…"
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