Author: Serkadis

Two of Mayor Richard Daley’s key aides, whose jobs are to make sure city workers obey rules and use good judgment, should be suspended for their own poor judgment in handling a student intern’s sexual harassment complaint, according to findings by the city’s watchdog.

Inspector General Joseph Ferguson, in a report to the mayor, recommended strong disciplinary action against the top officials in his Office of Compliance, a unit that Daley created in 2007 to promote a culture of good conduct among city workers.

Ferguson recommended that Daley suspend the office’s executive director, Anthony Boswell, and Boswell’s first deputy, Mark Meaney, for at least 30 days without pay, according to sources familiar with the report who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Sources said Ferguson found that the two fumbled the handling of a intern’s complaint that a boss at the city’s 911 center sexually harassed her in 2008.

The report found that Boswell and Meaney repeatedly disregarded city policies and showed favoritism to the boss during the sexual harassment investigation by trying to find him another city job, sources said.

Ferguson, in his report, said the two men’s actions were particularly egregious because their duties involve reviewing the conduct of other city workers.

Boswell declined to discuss the report Thursday, and Meaney did not respond to messages.

The case stems from a May 2008 complaint from the intern about her boss at the Office of Emergency Management and Communications.

The intern claimed the boss made inappropriate comments about her appearance and remarked about how he someday would like to have a cheerleader as an intern.

The city’s sexual harassment officer, who worked for Boswell and Meaney, began looking into the intern’s complaint, but she ran into resistance from the two, according to the report.

The sexual harassment officer complained about Boswell and Meaney to the inspector general, who opened an investigation.

The inspector general found that Boswell and Meaney tried to get the boss a new intern and also tried to move him to an unspecified city job away from the 911 Center.

Ferguson found that the two men were instrumental in the intern’s complaint being summarily dismissed by the Office of Compliance.

Boswell made his own complaints to the inspector general, alleging that the mayor’s office inappropriately intervened in the matter and that the sexual harassment officer tried to use political influence in her job, the report said. The inspector general found no merit to those allegations.

The federal court has been monitoring the city’s hiring system because of past corruption in handing out jobs and promotions. Boswell and his office are in line to take over monitoring of city hiring once court oversight ends. But Boswell’s office has been criticized by the court-appointed monitor — most recently for allegedly not reporting hiring violations and trying to cover it up.

Daley has said he will ask the court to end oversight this year, and sources said his administration is now considering taking away the monitoring functions that would go to Boswell’s office.

Ferguson, a former federal prosecutor, became the inspector general late last year after David Hoffman resigned to run for the U.S. Senate. The report is an early indication that — like Hoffman — Ferguson will be willing to investigate conduct by the mayor’s top aides.

Ferguson declined to comment. The mayor’s office also had no comment.

[email protected]

Read the original article from Tribune News Services.

Article Tags: ClimateGate, Marc Sheppard

Not surprisingly, the blatant corruption exposed at Britain’s premiere climate institute was not contained within the nation’s borders. Just months after the Climategate scandal broke, a new study has uncovered compelling evidence that our government’s principal climate centers have also been manipulating worldwide temperature data in order to fraudulently advance the global warming political agenda.

Not only does the preliminary report [PDF] indict a broader network of conspirators, but it also challenges the very mechanism by which global temperatures are measured, published, and historically ranked.

Last Thursday, Certified Consulting Meteorologist Joseph D’Aleo and computer expert E. Michael Smith appeared together on KUSI TV [Video] to discuss the Climategate — American Style scandal they had discovered. This time out, the alleged perpetrators are the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS).

NOAA stands accused by the two researchers of strategically deleting cherry-picked, cooler-reporting weather observation stations from the temperature data it provides the world through its National Climatic Data Center (NCDC). D’Aleo explained to show host and Weather Channel founder John Coleman that while the Hadley Center in the U.K. has been the subject of recent scrutiny, “[w]e think NOAA is complicit, if not the real ground zero for the issue.”

And their primary accomplices are the scientists at GISS, who put the altered data through an even more biased regimen of alterations, including intentionally replacing the dropped NOAA readings with those of stations located in much warmer locales.

As you’ll soon see, the ultimate effects of these statistical transgressions on the reports which influence climate alarm and subsequently world energy policy are nothing short of staggering.

Click source to read FULL report by Marc Sheppard

Source: americanthinker.com

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Tear Gas Makes Weapon of Fountain Pen

AN INNOCENT-APPEARING fountain pen containing a charge of tear gas which makes it a most effective weapon has been perfected for the use of cashiers, bank tellers, and others likely, to be objects of robbery. The tear gas is carried in the pen in liquid form and when the trigger is released it spouts out of the pen as a vapor which will blind and disable anyone it is directed against. The release trigger is shaped like the conventional ink-filling lever, and in appearance the weapon cannot be distinguished from an ordinary writing tool.

Motor-Powered Pencil Sharpener

PENCIL sharpening is an effortless job when there is used a pencil sharpener driven by an electric motor now on the market. Furthermore, unlike most hand-operated sharpeners, the new machine has a series of different-sized openings, so that it can be used to sharpen pencils of almost any size.

The device has an opening and a transparent case like the ordinary hand sharpeners. The pencil is placed in the open end, a little switch on top of the motor is thrown on and the little machine sharpens the pencil neatly and quickly.

Rodent infestation and poor housekeeping prompted city officials Thursday to shut down a Walgreens pharmacy in the Roseland neighborhood on the Far South Side.

Inspectors were following up on complaints about garbage and rodents when they visited the pharmacy at 11040 S. Michigan Ave., the Chicago Department of Streets and Sanitation said in a news release.

Inside, they found a large amount of clutter and more than 570 mouse droppings on the selling floor, on shelves stocked with snack foods and candy, and other areas, according to the release.

Outside, inspectors found an accumulation of garbage on the ground around an open trash receptacle.

“These conditions led to a prompt closure for the critical violation of inadequate pest control and the serious violations of trash accumulations on the inside and outside of the business,” the release stated.

The pharmacy will not be allowed to reopen until it revamps pest control and housekeeping programs, cleans and pest-proofs the business and passes “a tough follow-up inspection,” the city said.

–Staff report

Read the original article from Tribune News Services.

Article Tags: ClimateGate, John P. Costella

The most difficult thing for a scientist in the era of Climategate is trying to explain to family and friends why it is so distressing to scientists. Most people don’t know how science really works: there are no popular television shows, movies, or books that really depict the everyday lives of real scientists; it just isn’t exciting enough. I’m not talking here about the major discoveries of science – which are well-described in documentaries, popular science series, and magazines – but rather how the process of science (often called the “scientific method”) actually works.

The best analogy that I have been able to come up with, in recent weeks, is the criminal justice system – which is (rightly or wrongly) abundantly depicted in the popular media. Everyone knows what happens if police obtain evidence by illegal means: the evidence is ruled inadmissible; and, if a case rests on that tainted evidence, it is thrown out of court. The justice system is not saying that the accused is necessarily innocent; rather, that determining the truth is impossible if evidence is not protected from tampering or fabrication.

The same is true in science: scientists assume that the rules of the scientific method have been followed, at least in any discipline that publishes its results for public consumption. It is that trust in the process that allows me, for example, to believe that the human genome has been mapped – despite my knowing nothing about that field of science at all. That same trust has allowed scientists at large to similarly believe in the results of climate science.

Until now.

Source: scienceandpublicpolicy.org

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Exelon Corporation’s fourth-quarter earnings fell a less-than-expected 18 percent as the utility was hurt by unfavorable weather conditions and reduced demand, pressuring margins.

“Despite the impact of adverse economic, market and weather conditions, we achieved our financial and operating commitments” for 2009, said Chairman and Chief Executive John Rowe.

Utilities have struggled as consumer demand has waned during the recession. Exelon last month said it planned to close four units, which burn fossil fuels, at two of its Philadelphia power plants because of reduced demand and inefficient operations.

Exelon is the nation’s biggest generator of nuclear power.

The company reported a profit of $581 million, or 88 cents a share, down from $707 million, or $1.07 a share, a year earlier. Results for the latest quarter included a net 4 cents in charges. Revenue dropped 8.4 percent to $4.12 billion.

Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters had most recently forecast earnings of 86 cents on $5 billion in revenue.

Operating margin fell to 26.1 percent from 29.7 percent as output from the company’s fleet of nuclear generators fell 3.7 percent. As such, generation earnings fell 23 percent. Single-digit declines were seen at Exelon’s utilities.

Shares of Exelon, which also reiterated its 2010 earnings guidance, closed at $48.05 Thursday and were inactive premarket.

[email protected]

Read the original article from Tribune News Services.

Following the report earlier this week that the FBI regularly broke the ECPA law, in obtaining information from telcos without going through the proper process (and, in some cases using just a post it note!), some interesting details from the full report have come to light. The two key ones? First, “the Obama administration issued a secret rule almost two weeks ago saying it was legal for the FBI to have skirted federal privacy protections.” And, second, the original idea to use these bogus “exigent letters” didn’t come from the FBI, but from an AT&T employee. We noted in the original report that no one seemed to be placing any blame on the telcos for allowing this, and why they’re clearly abusing the law, in giving out such info without the proper rules being followed, seems like a big question:

The telecom employees were supposed to be responding to National Security Letters, which are essentially FBI-issued subpoenas. But those Patriot Act powers say the target must be part of an open investigation and that a supervisor has to approve it. While they require some paperwork, FBI agents have been issuing about 40,000 such NSLs a year.

But an AT&T employee provided the unit with a way around some of those requirements. The employee introduced them to so-called ‘exigent letters.’ Those letters, first used immediately following 9/11, asked for information by saying that the request was an emergency and that prosecutors were preparing a grand jury subpoena. The letter falsely promised that the subpoena, which gives the telecoms legal immunity, would be delivered later, the report said.

What’s more, the report noted that the cozy relationship between the bureau and the telecoms made it hard to differentiate between the FBI and the nation’s phone companies.

“The FBI’s use of exigent letters became so casual, routine and unsupervised that employees of all three communication service providers told us that they — the company employees– sometimes generated the exigent letters for CAU personnel to sign and return,” the inspector general reported.

In fact, one AT&T employee even created a short cut on his desktop to a form letter that he could print out for a requesting FBI agent to sign.

Even that became too much. Agents would request “sneak peeks,” where they’d ask if it was worth their time to file a request on a given phone number, the inspector general noted. The telecom agents complied. Soon it graduated to numbers on Post-it notes, in e-mails or just oral requests.

No wonder the telcos were so adamant about getting immunity on the warrantless wiretapping. It appears that the issue of telcos ignoring the rules when it came to your privacy goes pretty deep.

As for Obama issuing a rule saying that breaking the law is legal… how does that work? The president doesn’t get to just declare something legal, especially when it clearly violates both the letter and intent of the law.

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CINCINNATI—Barbara Rauen, 52, of Crestview Hills, Kentucky pleaded guilty in United States District Court here to one count of wire fraud for embezzling more than $300,000 from Havel’s, a specialty medical supplies distributor in Cincinnati.

Rauen was president, chief executive officer, and chief financial officer of the company from 1999 until she left the company on Aug. 20, 2008.

Carter M. Stewart, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio, and Keith L. Bennett, Special Agent in Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), announced the plea entered yesterday before Senior U.S. District Judge Herman J. Weber.

According to the a statement of facts filed with the plea, Rauen began embezzling funds from the company in about November 2002 by issuing company checks to herself and depositing them into her personal bank account. Rauen also issued company checks to creditors to pay off various personal debts.

In order to hide these transactions and cover up the embezzlement, she falsified the company’s check registry so that the unauthorized checks appeared to be issued to a true associated business, or they were not recorded at all.

As a result of the scheme to defraud, Rauen obtained approximately $307,566.81 to which she was not entitled. In execution of the scheme and in furtherance of it, Rauen used interstate wire communications by using online banking services and making online payments to reduce the balance owed on her personal credit card and other personal accounts.

One such transaction occurred on November 28, 2007, when defendant Rauen made an unauthorized online payment from Havel’s company account to her personal credit card in the amount of $19,982.00.

Wire fraud is punishable by a maximum sentence of 20 years. Judge Weber scheduled a sentencing hearing for Rauen for April 15, 2010 at 9 a.m.

Stewart commended the FBI agents who conducted the investigation and Assistant U.S. Attorney Anne Porter, who is prosecuting the case.

Filed under: Aftermarket, Coupe, Performance, Ford

The 2011 Shelby GT350 seemed to have a polarizing effect when it debuted at Barrett-Jackson’s opening gala event on Monday night. Some of you loved it and others instantly objected to everything from the looks of the car to the $33,995 price tag that doesn’t include the base car. With 500 horsepower from the new 5.0-liter V8, there’s no arguing that the 2011 GT350 has plenty of performance potential, but is another $60,000+ Mustang what people really want?

The first thing we did when we arrived in Scottsdale last night was to make a bee-line to check out the car in person. We also caught up with Jim Owens, Shelby’s Vice President of Marketing and Communications, who talked to us about the car. Follow the jump for what we learned about the 2011 GT350.

Photos by Drew Phillips / Copyright (C)2010 Weblogs, Inc.

Continue reading 2011 Shelby GT350 live at Barrett-Jackson

2011 Shelby GT350 live at Barrett-Jackson originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 22 Jan 2010 11:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Kankakee Daily Journal reports: A tentative contract agreement was reached late this afternoon between negotiators for the Kankakee District 111 School Board and striking teachers in the Kankakee Federation of Teachers.

Teachers will vote on the new contract at noon Friday.

Get the full story: daily-journal.com.

Read the original article from Tribune News Services.

Chicago area transit agencies have racked up $250 million in unpaid bills because of the state’s fiscal crisis, Regional Transportation Authority officials said Thursday.

The funding shortfall is causing the RTA to borrow as much as $260 million to help the CTA, Metra and Pace make payroll and pay bills, at a cost of more than $5 million a year in interest.

If the RTA can’t borrow more and the state doesn’t come up with the money it owes, the CTA, Metra and Pace could be asked to cut service in a “worst-case scenario,” officials said.

The RTA is just the latest agency to complain about Illinois’ $5 billion pile of unpaid bills. The state owes money to local school districts, universities and community colleges and municipalities.

“We’re not the only ones,” RTA Executive Director Steve Schlickman said. “Everyone has a similar situation. The state is in arrears to many government systems.”

The struggling economy is forcing transit agencies to run more and more on borrowed money. The mass-transit share of anticipated sales tax revenue is hundreds of millions short of expectations.

To help counter this, the RTA on Thursday sold $175 million in bonds, approved by the agency in November. That revenue will help offset the CTA’s $300 million budget deficit.

The bond deal, brokered by Gov. Pat Quinn which includes a pledge not to raise CTA fares for two years, won’t forestall major service cuts and layoffs set for Feb. 7.

The RTA has $260 million in outstanding working-cash debt, Financial Officer Joe Costello said.

The RTA will ask the legislature to increase this borrowing authority to $400 million.

It is hoped that the move will buy time for the economy to improve, for tax revenue to increase and for the state to work its way out of its financial hole, Costello said.

[email protected]

Read the original article from Tribune News Services.

Other Great AndroidGuys Posts

• November 4, 2009 — T-Mobile’s Cole Brodman Talks Android at Summit (16)
• July 8, 2009 — Pre-Orders for T-Mobile myTouch 3G Happening Now (4)
• January 19, 2010 — T-Mobile Rumor Roundup (1)
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Barney Frank, champion of financial regulation and former proponent of GSEs, is now recommending that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac be abolished.

Quite a turnaround, no?

Well, actually maybe not.

He just wants them abolished in their current form, according to Dow Jones.

So that would probably mean the abolition of the pointless FNM and FRE penny stocks that continue to trade.

There’s no indication, however, that he wants to abolish the essence of the GSEs, which is that the government will do whatever it is to support housing.

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• How The Government Caused The Mortgage Crisis
• Fannie And Freddie Scheme To Help Independent Mortgage Lenders Grow
• Ben Bernanke’s Huge Mistake About The Crisis Will Screw Us All

Hybrid vehicles have been becoming more and more popular, with the Toyota Prius leading the pack. However, we now have a huge selection of hybrids looking to steal some market share from the Prius including the 2010 Ford Fusion Hybrid, 2010 Honda Insight, Chevrolet Malibu Hybrid, Honda Civic Hybrid, Ford Escape Hybrid, Toyota Camry Hybrid and the luxury Lexus HS 250h Hybrid. Arriving this spring, BMW will offer its ActiveHybrid X6 and ActiveHybrid 7.

Given you’re in the market to purchase a hybrid, which hybrid would you buy?

Let us know in the comments section below.

– By: Omar Rana

Photo Copyright © 2009 Omar Rana – egmCarTech.

Harmonix is putting up more classic rock songs on the Rock Band Music Store. Blue Öyster Cult is headlining the update along with Hawkwind, Nazareth, and Motörhead. Also coming along for the ride are I Mother Earth

Chinese Automaker Zhejiang Jonway Automobile Co. Ltd. and U.S. electric vehicle manufacturer Zap have decided to join forces in order to produce electric SUVs, cars and other electric vehicles in China destined for domestic and global markets, as Gasgoo reports.

The partnership with Jonway is a step in Zap’s development plan which is aimed at using the growing Chinese market’s potential. According to Gasgoo, The two companies intend to sell a 5-door SUV using a lithium battery system. Jonway … (read more)

When Loyola University students returned to campus this week, they found the word “Reimagine” in odd places — on yellow pennants left in their rooms and on the university’s Web site when they logged in to check e-mail.

Over breakfast Wednesday morning, five dorm-mates tried to guess what was going on. “Redoing the quad?” asked one.

“You think it’s something about being more green?” asked another.

The meaning will be revealed at a Saturday pep rally, when officials are to announce plans to remake campus life over the next five years.

According to details revealed to the Tribune, the university will build a new student union, expand the recreation building and transform the athletics center from what looks like a high school gym into a modern college arena.

Loyola’s shift to improving students’ experiences outside the classroom comes after a decade of focusing on new academic buildings, laboratories, a library and dorms.

“The last big issue was the student recreation space. We need more things for students to do on campus,” the Rev. Michael Garanzini, university president, told the Tribune.

“They love the neighborhood but they love getting out and going down to the bars — and I have to say this — near DePaul,” he said, a playful dig at the other large Catholic university in Chicago.

There will be changes big and small for the university’s 15,800 students: A 200-seat movie theater, a group cycling room, food court, student meeting rooms, prayer spaces, new lockers for athletes, even canoe rentals. “It will be 100 percent different,” said Robert Kelly, vice president for student development.

The $100 million project, to be completed by 2015, imagines a connected complex of five new or renovated buildings on the northwest section of the Rogers Park campus: a three-story intercollegiate athletics center, a renovated Gentile Center for the Ramblers, a 70,000-square-foot student union, an expanded Halas recreation center and a repurposed Centennial Forum, which will include the bookstore, alumni center, and an outdoor adventure program.

The building for student-athletes, which is to wrap around the Gentile Center and include a sports medicine facility, advising center and workout facilities, is expected to be completed first, by 2011. The Centennial Forum changes will be completed last, by 2015.

By that time, most of the students currently on campus will have graduated.

“That part is a little sad,” said freshman Rachel Dean-Webster, 19, after a reporter told her details about the improvements. “The union lacks a lot of things that other schools have. It doesn’t have anything to bring students together.”

Read the original article from Tribune News Services.