Author: Serkadis

OAK LAWN, Ill. (CBS) ― A young Army veteran was in jail Sunday accused of killing his wife just as the young couple were planning to move into a new home.

CBS 2′S Mike Puccinelli reports what police think happened.

Joseph Jesk, 23, was discharged from the armed forces just last month. But adjusting to post-war life appears to have been this young man’s biggest battle.

His family members tell police he’d been exhibiting signs of post traumatic stress disorder. Late Saturday, officials say excessive amounts of alcohol and a loaded weapon all added up to murder in the south suburb of Oak Lawn.

Police say Jesk shot his 23-year-old wife, Heather, in the face. Officers were called to the house just before 11 p.m. Saturday.

Jesk was arrested a short while later at a train station after he called 911. They arrested the Afghan War veteran without incident.

“While they were handcuffing him and putting him in the car he made a statement that he had just killed the only person he loves,” Oak Lawn Police Department Division Chief Michael Kaufmann said.

The children were not home at the time. But Joseph’s sister was. She ran to neighbor Ray Cooney’s house screaming for help. Cooney said he hadn’t slept in 30 hours because he was unable to stop thinking about the young mother who died and of the two children she was forced to leave behind.

“I don’t think anybody could ever recover from a day like last night,” Cooney said. “That’s something that will linger in your mind for probably until the end.”

His mother, Eileen, saw paramedics wheel Heather out on a gurney. Sunday, she learned that the young mom who she’d come to love didn’t make it.

“Her kids were her whole life,” she said. “For being a young girl, she was a great mother.”

Cooney said she’d hugged Joseph Jesk just hours before he allegedly shot the love of his life.

“I have to say I don’t hate him for this,” Eileen said. “I’m sorry.”

She’s especially sorry for the two young girls who now will have to grow up without a mother and very likely without a father.

It’s not exactly clear why Jesk left the armed forces. Sources say he was kicked out of the army in part due to his drinking. Police would not confirm that.

Jesk was scheduled to appear in bond court Monday morning.

Read the original article from WBBM News Radio.

Distributed via Chicago Press Release Services

NAPERVILLE, Ill. (STMW) – Gasoline and garbage are likely to cost a little more in Naperville depending on how the City Council votes this week, and the council will continue to review city employee benefits and staffing in an effort to cut costs.

The City Council is expected to vote at its Tuesday meeting on proposed new tax hikes in an effort to close the remaining $5.5 million gap in the city’s budget.

The three revenue-generating ordinances include:

• A increase to the motor fuel tax from 2 cents per gallon to 5 cents per gallon.

• The creation of a $3.50 refuse fee for garbage collection added to residents’ monthly bills

• A change in the food and beverage tax that would divert 25 percent of funds collected to the General Fund instead of the Special Events and Cultural Amenities Fund for the upcoming fiscal year. Beginning the following fiscal year, 50 percent of funds would be diverted to the General Fund.

All of the changes would be implemented May 1, the start of the city’s fiscal year.

Two of the changes, the hike in the motor fuel tax and the moving of funds from SECA to the General Fund, were met with protests at the council’s previous meeting.

The council is expected to approve the taxes and fees but is set to revisit them in two years. The city estimates the combined revenue generated by the three taxes will be $4.5 million, leaving a $1 million gap in the budget for fiscal year 2011.

The council will also be voting on and discussing a number of items relating to the city’s workers.

Employees of the city may be subject to an increase in their health insurance premiums. A resolution to be voted on will increase employee contributions from 10 percent of premiums to 15 percent.

Following the council workshop Feb. 22, the council is set to revisit the subject of pension reform and decide on a course of action for lobbying Springfield to make changes to state pension system. The council will consider joining the Pension Fairness for Illinois Communities Coalition at a cost of between $1,000 and $10,000 to pool lobbying efforts.

The city cannot make direct changes to pensions for fire, police, or municipal employees because they are protected by the Illinois Constitution. Also on the agenda, the council is expected to approve temporary weekend overnight parking at three parking decks downtown.

The Naperville City Council will meet at 7 p.m. Tuesday in the council chambers at the Naperville Municipal Center, 400 S. Eagle St.

Read the original article from WBBM News Radio.

Distributed via Chicago Press Release Services

CHICAGO (CBS/WBBM) ― An IDOT “minuteman” driver was injured when a car hit his truck early Monday.

All express lanes on the southbound Dan Ryan Expressway were shut down after the accident.

Illinois Department of Transportation truck 953 was blocking a lane on the southbound Dan Ryan while trying to collect a vehicle that was in a lane from an earlier accident, Illinois State Police said.

The IDOT worker was not seriously hurt, but will be taken to an area hospital, state police said.

The driver of the vehicle that hit the IDOT truck was more seriously hurt, but his injuries were not life-threatening, state police said.

State police say the crash will “most likely” result in the arrest of the driver who hit the IDOT truck, because he is believed to have been impaired at the time.

Illinois State Police continue their investigation into the crash.

The IDOT “Minutemen,” or the Emergency Traffic Patrol program, dispatches teams of emergency patrol vehicles and drivers to traffic disruptions and potential safety problems caused by accidents, disabled vehicles, or hazardous debris on high-traffic volume segments of the Illinois interstate system.

Read the original article from WBBM News Radio.

Distributed via Chicago Press Release Services

CHICAGO (AP) — Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan, boasting his divine stature, on Sunday predicted trouble ahead for President Barack Obama and urged him to do more to improve the lives of blacks and the downtrodden.

The 76-year-old leader said the “white right” was conspiring to make Obama a one-term president, and pointed to his stalled efforts to introduce health care legislation as proof. He said those opponents and lobbyists were trapping him into a future war with Iran that could lead to mass destruction.

“The word ‘prophet’ is too cheap a word. I am a light in the midst of darkness,” Farrakhan said at the annual convention of the movement that embraces black nationalism. “It ain’t ego, it’s my love for you.”

An estimated 20,000 people attended the heavily guarded Saviours’ Day event at the United Center in Chicago. Followers – men dressed in navy uniforms and women in white skirt suits with matching hijabs – cheered on Farrakhan with shouts of “Allahu Akbar,” Arabic for “God is great.”

Farrakhan spent most of the fiery nearly four-hour speech recounting a 1985 vision he had in Mexico. Farrakhan has often described how he believes he was invited aboard an unidentified flying object he calls “the wheel” where he said he heard the late Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad speak to him.

He said that experience led him to inklings about future events, including the United States’ 1986 bombing of Libya.

Farrakhan recounted how his divine knowledge has allowed him to recognize countless warning signs over the decades – such as natural disasters such as the earthquake in Chile – and said they indicate impending trouble, including for Obama.

Dressed in ornate creme robes, he addressed the president directly:

“Your people are suffering. You can’t ease their plight, but you can use your bully pulpit. Speak for the poor. Speak for the weak.”

He said helping the Nation of Islam, which has worked to reform black inmates for decades, would also be an answer.

“Put some money on back of us,” he said. “We can reform our people.”

Farrakhan has vigorously supported Obama for years and used his presidency as a call to action for blacks. That was even as Obama distanced himself from the group for Farrakhan’s past comments that many considered anti-Semitic.

Supporters say Farrakhan’s words are often taken out of context.

Farrakhan continued his praise of Obama Sunday, and said the nation’s first black president was manipulated into disavowing Farrakhan.

He would not say if he and Obama had ever met on the issue.

“They all want to know did I ever meet with him and what did I say or what he say,” Farrakhan said in the speech. “I ain’t going there.”

—

On the Net:

Nation of Islam Saviours’ Day 2010: http://www.noisd.org

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Read the original article from WBBM News Radio.

Distributed via Chicago Press Release Services

 Morgan Stanley analysts assume, like we do, that the tightening cycle has begun, and so they’re drawing investor attention to the last two times this was the case:

Start of tightening and growth scare just like 1994 and 2004. Two of the key market themes in 2010 were also prominent in both1994 and 2004 we believe. First, these are ‘start of tightening’ years. The Fed started hiking the Fed funds rate in 1994/2004. That has not happened yet but we
believe the tightening process has clearly begun, given recent events (e.g. Asian tightening and Fed raising the discount rate and beginning liquidity withdrawal). Despite policy rates not moving yet, such moves combined with sovereign concerns mean the cost of capital is rising. Second, a
growth scare is building we believe. Investors are questioning the strength and durability of the recovery and leading indicators are already rolling over. In summary, markets struggle in the face of higher uncertainty, lower growth prospects and tighter monetary conditions.

• In post-credit bubble world shifts in policy and growth prospects are key. Gerard Minack has pointed out that the growth in excess credit (i.e. above GDP growth) lead equity markets in the period from early 1980s to late 2000s. We believe post-credit bubble economies are structurally weaker and therefore more vulnerable to shifts in policy. Moreover, interest rate changes are not the only important lever of policy. Stimulus withdrawal itself (or the prospect of it) contributes to a deterioration in business sentiment and lead indicators. Japan was a good example of such an environment. Policy changes marked most of the main turning points in Japanese stocks e.g. swings in fiscal spending, tax increases, QE, FX intervention etc. Fiscal policy will likely play a key role (as it did in Japan). Fiscal policy was much looser in this cycle than in early 1990s or 2000s and we may be close to an inflection point. The US budget deficit is twice the size it was in 1994 or 2004 and is set to contract from 2010. The standardized budget deficit (i.e. adjusted for cyclical and one-off effects) should widen again in 2010 but at a much slower rate.

• Conclusion today -we think it is too early to buyand expect the current correction phase to last a few months oreven quarters longer. We would like to wait until either fundamentals improve or our valuation and sentiment models give buy signals.

And here are some visuals and numbers to emphasize the point:

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• Forex Vigilantes Are Now Punishing UK Voters For Supporting The Labour Party
• JPMorgan: The Debt Threat Is Over, Time To Get Super-Bullish Again
• Sentiment Fails To Hold Up

After enormous pain, the airline industry has reported its first revenue growth in 14 months.

Times are far from great, but there’s a small glimmer of hope emerging:

L.A. Times:

In January, passenger revenue for domestic and international flights rose 1.4% compared with the same month in 2009, according to the Air Transport Assn., the industry trade group that represents the country’s largest airlines. And airline cargo traffic for December jumped 17% over the same month in 2008, according to the group.

“The modest uptick in passenger revenue and the solid increase in cargo volumes are promising signs that air transport demand may be at the beginning of a long-awaited recovery,” association President James C. May said.

One research firm even believes that there could be substantial revenue growth happening right now:

The group’s report was released a week after an independent equity research company, Majestic Research Corp., released a study predicting that large, traditional airlines such as US Airways, United Airlines, American Airlines and Delta Air Lines may see passenger revenue increase as much as 9% in the first quarter of 2010 compared with the same period in 2009. The research firm based its analysis on proprietary data collected from airline ticket vendors and by surveying ticket prices on the Internet, among other techniques.

If Majestic is proven correct, it will be hard for bears to excuse-away an airline revenue rebound.

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• Stimulus-Subsidized High Speed Trains Slaughtering Chinese Airlines And Jeopardizing Boeing’s China Dream
• Faber: A China Crash Would Destroy Most Commodities
• Why Your Flight From LAX To JFK Takes An Hour Longer Than It Did In 1996

Timing is everything.

And few authors have had better timing than Bridget Houlihan Kennedy.

Her book, “Chicago’s South Side Irish Parade” (Arcadia Publishing), was released Feb. 22, just a few weeks before St. Patrick’s Day.

And it’s just a few weeks before what would have been the 32nd annual South Side Irish St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Chicago’s Beverly and Morgan Park communities.

The parade, which basically had become too big for its britches, won’t be held this year. Organizers decided to cancel it shortly after the 2009 parade drew an estimated 300,000, and there were many brushes with Chicago police.

“The parade became a victim of its own success. It was a great thing, but for the people who lived there, it became too overwhelming,” Houlihan Kennedy said.

Oh, and about that timing that “worked out perfectly” for the author.

“For it to come out the first year there’s no parade gives people a great opportunity to remember 31 years of the parade,” Houlihan Kennedy said.

Gone but not forgotten, the parade marches on in her book, which features a collection of more than 200 vintage photographs.

Many of the photos are from private collections.

Houlihan Kennedy began advertising in local church bulletins in 2008, seeking photos of the parade.

She was flooded with “zillions and zillions” of responses from people in the community, parishes and residents such as the Hendry and Coakley families, both with ties to the first parade.

“It’s better to have too many pictures,” she said.

Houlihan Kennedy, 32, who lived in Beverly until her family moved to Wilmette when she was 2 years old, made the annual trek to the parade.

“It means a lot for everyone involved. It captures the spirit of the South Side Irish, plain and simple. For a lot of people, it’s a chance to get back to the community, to come back to see family and friends, and to celebrate the Irish heritage,” she said.

“Look at us. We’d come down from Wilmette to Beverly ever year. It’s a wonderful excuse to get your green on, to be at the parade,” she said.

Her book tries to capture the excitement and the Irish heritage from all those Sunday parades.

She’s organized the photos into chapters with themes such as floats, costumes, grand marshals, families, leprechauns, St. Patrick, or just people watching the parade.

“At the end, we see the 2009 parade and we can see how much it grew. There are people everywhere,” Houlihan Kennedy said.

Houlihan Kennedy has her favorite photos from the book.

“There’s a picture from the very first parade of The Wee Folk. It’s a little fuzzy, but Arcadia did a great job reproducing the photos,” she said.

She also likes a photo from 1983, the first year the parade marched down Western Avenue.

“You see a couple floats going by with cars going past in the other direction. That first year, the parade went down only the southbound lanes of Western Avenue. Can you imagine? You’d never see that today,” she said.

This is the first book by Houlihan Kennedy, a former newspaper reporter for the Pioneer Press, sister papers of the SouthtownStar. She was inspired to write a book when she learned of a book about Bosnian-Americans in Chicago.

“I was surprised there was a market for that. If a book about Bosnian-Americans would sell, there certainly was a market for a book about the South Side Irish Parade,” she said.

She will be selling copies of the book at the South Side Irish Family Fest March 13 at the Beverly Arts Center, 2407 W. 111th St., Chicago.

The book is available on Amazon and at Bookie’s, 2419 W. 103rd St., Chicago.

Houlihan Kennedy now lives in Chicago’s Lincoln Square community with her husband, Michael, and their 9-month-old son Donny.

GET A COPY

Bridget Houlihan Kennedy will be selling copes of “Chicago’s South Side Irish Parade” at the South Side Irish Family Fest March 13 at the Beverly Arts Center, 2407 W. 111th St., Chicago. The book is available on Amazon and at Bookie’s, 2419 W. 103rd St., Chicago.

Read the original article from SouthTown Star.

Distributed via Chicago Press Release Services

Carrie Horak was in Chile to immerse herself in the culture and learn the language.

The immersion was more than she could have anticipated.

The Downers Grove resident, who studies at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, said she was awake at 3:45 a.m. in her Santiago apartment when the earthquake hit Saturday.

“I was just in my bed on my computer,” said Horak, who is in Chile through an exchange program offered by Butler University. “There was a slight shake initially and then everything really started to move. I just ran out of my bed and ran into my door frame and just stayed there the whole time. My host mom ran out of her home and shouted (the Spanish word for) ‘earthquake.’ It was pretty loud and a lot of things started to fall. That was the most scary. My host mom has a lot of decorations and a lot of things just fell on the floor and broke.”

Meanwhile, in the Chicago area, residents with relatives affected by the earthquake waited for any kind of word.

Like his fellow countrymen in the states, Fernando Godoy has been waiting for news from home. Godoy said he and his wife Melina, who live in Buffalo Grove, have been steadily watching DirecTV’s satellite feed from Chile for the past couple of days.

“It’s hard, it’s tough, because you are here and you can do nothing,” Godoy said. “I don’t know how much we can do here for the people.”

Godoy, a former resident of Santiago, said his mother, an American citizen, was visiting her family in Chile at the time of the earthquake.

“Fortunately I spoke with them, and they are good,” he said.

He added that his mother would like to return to the U.S., but the airport is closed.

Yet another concern lingers for Godoy and his wife, since her cousin and aunt live very close to the center of the quake and no one has heard from them. He was told that 95 percent of their town was destroyed.

Melina said part of her family is in Curanipe, including her uncle, aunt, cousin and some other distant relatives taking vacations by the beach south of Santiago. She said another cousin, who is stuck in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and has not had the chance to fly back home, is unaware of the fate of his family in Curanipe. The airport is closed because of structural damage.

Godoy’s friend, Mario Rojas, who lives in Chicago, said he was immediately frustrated on Saturday because he could not immediately communicate with loved ones in Chile.

“In the afternoon, I got lucky, and my oldest sister Sylvia called me on a cell phone,” Rojas said. “That way I found out at least that my close family is OK.”

He said they live in Santiago, but most of the damage is to the south in Concepción. Still, he said the wall that divides his sister’s house from a neighbor’s caved in. Damage like this throughout Chile has changed the beautiful environment he visited last October, he added.

“Everything was so pretty,” said Rojas. “Now it’s all down and destroyed. It’s so sad.”

Read the original article on DailyHerald.com.

Distributed via Chicago Press Release Services

The BEUMER autover ensures a smart distribution

Speed, safety and flexibility are the three essential characteristics of the BEUMER autover baggage handling system. This DCV system comprises a passive rail system and individual vehicles, known as BEUMER autoca. This multi-functional sortation and distribution system ensures a safe and gentle baggage handling and transport. Owing to the contactless energy and data transmission, maintenance and operating costs are very low.

The BEUMER autoca are equipped with an on-board-controller and discrete drive unit. They move independently from each other through the rail system. The BEUMER autoca are able to receive goods having a weight of up to 60 kg and to transport them automatically to their respective destinations. The BEUMER autoca carry out automatic self-diagnosis and, where necessary, apply dynamically for maintenance according to arbitrary intervals. With just a mouse click, the corresponding vehicle drives toward the central maintenance area – without disrupting transport in the remainder of the baggage handling system.
Optimal range
Each vehicle can reach any point in the rail system. Accordingly, the autover system can respond completely and efficiently to peak times in respective check-in areas by concentrating an appropriate number of vehicles where needed. New route segments, in case of extensions, for example, are easily integrated. Small curve radii ensure that the system occupies little space. Furthermore, it is possible to deposit bags in an early bag store by using the BEUMER autoca and to release them on demand. In case of failure of x-ray equipment, the BEUMER autoca containing the baggage to be scanned is directly diverted to a device ready for use, thus ensuring a high degree of operational reliability.
The entire system is controlled by the BEUMER Sortation System (BeSS), a proprietary software system that controls each BEUMER autoca individually and constitutes the interface to the individual airport systems – such as FIS and DCS, among others. Modules for baggage management/sort allocation computers (SAC) are available.

Since 2001, a similar version of the BEUMER autover baggage handling system has been used successfully at the Münster/Osnabrück airport with an availability of almost 100 %. Other baggage handling systems, equipped with the BEUMER autover system, reliably perform their services at Toulouse airport as well as in Dubai, Montreal and soon also in Oujda.

Filed under: Motorsports, Diesel, Racing

We saw Gale Banks’ diesel-powered Sidewinder dragster at SEMA back in 2008, but that stationary display is not how the vehicle is meant to be experienced. No, this beast wants to move, and that’s just what it’ll do Saturday, March 6th at the Speedworld Dragstrip for NHRDA’s Desert Diesel Nationals in Wittmann, AZ. There, the dragster is going to try and run the quarter-mile in the low-mid 6’s “while emitting none of the black clouds of soot normally associated with diesel racing.”

With 1,200 horsepower rumbling from its 6.6L Duramax diesel V8 from General Motors (or maybe something more powerful?) rocketing the Sidewinder down the track, we admit this isn’t the greenest of vehicles – but if you can go 200 miles per hour, you might be able to change some minds about just what diesel is capable of. Banks said in a statement that this is his goal: “Diesel has cleaned up its act, and we’re out to prove speed can come without the price of black smoke.”

[Source: Gale Banks]

Continue reading Gale Banks shooting for 200 mph in diesel-powered Sidewinder dragster

Gale Banks shooting for 200 mph in diesel-powered Sidewinder dragster originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 01 Mar 2010 07:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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“We share some of the views of the Tea Partiers in terms of the role of special interest in Washington, D.C., as — it just has to stop. And that’s why I’ve fought the special interest, whether it’s on energy, whether it’s on health insurance, whether it’s on pharmaceuticals and the rest.” ~Speaker Nancy Pelosi

You’ll have to read this interview. At first I thought she was doing an about face from earlier disparaging Tea party comments…realizing the error of her ways. But then after making the above statement goes right back to bashing and calling the Tea Parties a creation of the Republican Party (a mindless remark given the ire directed at so many of the veteran Republicans)

Then she made this statement:
“…the Republican Party directs a lot of what the Tea Party does, but not everybody in the Tea Party takes direction from the Republican Party…”

“…?…”

Couple that with her statement to a reporter on Friday (after we learned that she was ‘standing behind’ Charlie Rangle) that SHE WAS running the “most ethical and honest Congresss in history.” (video)

Seriously? Is the Botox seeping into her brain?

***And, in case you missed the NYT’s Tea Party ‘scare’ piece (interestingly enough, which directly opposes Pelosi’s stated view) –You can read it here. What’s really sad is, though this article is clearly meant to scare liberals –and it does, friends of mine have branded it as ‘disquieting’ –the only charge against Tea Party goers is that they ‘allude to Patriot dogma’ and want a return to the Constitution. And THAT scares liberals?! Now that’s what the article should be about.

El medio German Car Blogs ha sido el encargado de publicar una nueva foto espía del nuevo Audi A7 Sportback. Dicha imagen ha sido tomada mientras Audi realizaba unas pruebas para comprobar unas actualizaciones que ha instalado en el modelo.

Cabe destacar que será presentado de forma oficial en el próximo Salón de París. En cuanto a la motorización, se espera que haga uso de un motor V10 que desarrolla 600 CV y que más adelante se sacará una versión híbrida. 

Dicho motor estará ligado a una caja de cambios manual de seis velocidades o una automática de ocho velocidades.

Related posts:

1. Fotos espía : Audi A5 SportBack
2. Fotos espía del Audi A5 Sportback
3. Foto y vídeo espía del Audi RS5

As if the existential threats to Europe weren’t sharp enough, the just-concluded Winter Olympics in Vancouver just hammered the point home.

As Nate Silver points out, there’s been a dramatic swing away from Europe in terms of medal dominance from Europe (the old powerhouse) to the new dominate regions North America and Asia.

Here’s a really interesting way of looking at the Calgary vs. Vancouver medal count that only looks at sports that were in the Calgary Olympics. In other words it excludes events like Snowboarding (which favors the US) and short-track speed skating (which favors Asia).:

As you can see, European medal dominance is in decline, especially the dominance of the Eastern Bloc, though Western Europe has totally stalled.

When you see certain markers like the Austrians failing to dominate Alpine skiing, or the Swiss failing to medal in bobsled, you’re seeing the symptoms of an aging society without athletic depth among its youth.

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• There Is One Solution To The Greek Problem, But The Rest Of Europe Will Hate It
• Why The 2014 Winter Olympics Will Be Plagued By Violence And Corruption
• How Innovation Has Changed The Winter Olympics

Republicans are always accused of fear mongering when it comes to National security, radical Islam and terrorism (of course when it’s health care or global warming it’s just voicing legitimate concerns…)

I often lament that by the time the boys are old enough to appreciate it and I have the money to take them to the UK, it really will be Londonstan and out of the question for offspring travel… This article didn’t help to assuage my fears.

“…Jim Fitzpatrick, the Environment Minister, said the IFE [The Islamic Forum of Europe] had become, in effect, a secret party within Labour and other political parties.

“They are acting almost as an entryist organisation, placing people within the political parties, recruiting members to those political parties, trying to get individuals selected and elected so they can exercise political influence and power, whether it’s at local government level or national level,” he said.

“They are completely at odds with Labour’s programme, with our support for secularism.”

Mr Fitzpatrick, the MP for Poplar and Canning Town, said the IFE had infiltrated and “corrupted” his party in east London in the same way that the far-Left Militant Tendency did in the 1980s. Leaked Labour lists show a 110 per cent rise in party membership in one constituency in two years.

In a six-month investigation by this newspaper and Channel 4’s Dispatches, involving weeks of covert filming by the programme’s reporters:

* IFE activists boasted to the undercover reporters that they had already “consolidated … a lot of influence and power” over Tower Hamlets, a London borough council with a £1 billion budget. (Read the entire article)

Call it fear mongering, religious profiling, discrimination…whatever you want, but I have huge fear about this happening here. About domination by immigration (we went to Ikea in South Philly the other day and I swear I was the only one there without a Hijab on). And I fear a slow acceptance of Sharia law because of the tendency to cling to political correctness… Sadly, many Americans will cave to the pressure by Muslim groups even in the face of irrefutable evidence of the growing threats.

Last week we wrote about how Microsoft abused the DMCA to force Cryptome offline via Network Solutions. Since then, there’s been some interesting scrambling by all parties involved. Mircorosft claimed that it never meant to take Cryptome down entirely, just the one document (though, it no longer is asking for it to be taken down). But that doesn’t make much sense, because Network Solutions only had the ability to take down the whole site, not pieces of content. Either way, what really confused us was Network Solutions response to the DMCA takedown, which was that it waited until Cryptome filed a counternotice to take down the site. That’s not how the DMCA works.

Yet, in a blog post sent over by Achura, Network Solutions tries to provide a “layperson’s guide” to the DMCA. The only problem is that they get it wrong.

First, Network Solutions seems to think that the DMCA provides for a “notice-and-notice” system of dealing with takedowns, whereby it needs to first notify the user and wait for them to respond. Unfortunately, the DMCA does not follow such a procedure. It would be much better if it did. However, the DMCA is a “notice-and-takedown” setup, whereby the service provider who receives the notice needs to first take down the content, if it wishes to retain its safe harbor protections. It can choose not to take the content down (though, that rarely happens), but it risks losing the safe harbor protections. As the law itself clearly states:

upon notification of claimed infringement as described in paragraph (3), responds expeditiously to remove, or disable access to, the material that is claimed to be infringing or to be the subject of infringing activity.

So NetSol is wrong to claim that they first need to notify the user and wait for the response.

Second, NetSol is then wrong in how it responds to a counternotice from the user. It claims:

If the customer challenges the Notice by submitting a Counter Notification that complies with the DMCA, the Host is required to disable access to the allegedly infringing site for a period of “not less than 10 business days, nor [sic] more than 14 business days” (the “Challenge Time Period”).

Again, this appears to be incorrect. If it had been following the DMCA, it should have already taken the content down to retain safe harbors. It makes no sense to say once the counternotice is sent then you take down the content. Instead, the no less than 10 days/no more than 14 days refers to how much time the service provider is supposed to wait before putting the content back that it already took down. Of course, given that NetSol was confused about the notice-and-takedown process, you could see why it felt the need to take the content down after the counternotice — because that’s the point that it realizes it was legally supposed to take the content down earlier.

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Privacy controversies are no stranger to any web company, especially giants like Google and Facebook. While exaggerated in some cases and outright misguided in others, plenty of times the company has things to answer for. And on few occasions does a company make such a dumb move that it’s hard to imagine what was the thought process and how the peo… (read more)

Greek credibility just disintegrated in the eyes of the largest bond fund in Asia, Kokusai. Moreover, Greece will have to pay up when it comes to bond yield if it wants to keep other major investors from jumping ship as well:

Bloomberg:

Investors including Kokusai Asset Management Co., Asia’s biggest bond fund, sold holdings of Greek debt as the nation, wrestling with the European Union’s biggest budget deficit, had its sovereign ratings cut in December. Fund managers who under their own rules may take part in the issue say Greece must offer the biggest premium over benchmark German debt since 1998, paying a coupon of about 7 percent.

…

Kokusai’s Global Sovereign Open fund, the biggest investor in Greek bonds last year among companies that make regulatory filings, sold all of its holdings at the end of 2009 in anticipation of Standard & Poor’s downgrading the nation to BBB+ from A-, said Masataka Horii, a co-manager of the Tokyo-based company. Many investors limit the amount of debt of a given rating their funds can hold.

Kokusai was well ahead of the game.

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• Moody’s Warns Greece To Get Its Handout Mobs Under Control Or Be Slammed With A Multi-Notch Downgrade
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The British pound is tanking as recent opinion polls show support for the Conservative government falling. This implies that the U.K. could have its first first minority government since 1974.

 

A minority government would increase the chances for a hung parliament whereby nothing happens due to political gridlock. As our colleague Gregory White highlighted a week back, 'A hung parliament for Britain would mean no 'Austerity Budget,' more market uncertainty, and a near definite credit downgrade from AAA for the country. The UK would become target number one for speculators as a result, if it isn't already.'

Thus the pound is being slammed:

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