Blog

[JURIST] Turkish politician and Kurdish rights activist Leyla Zana was sentenced Thursday to three years in prison for spreading terrorist propaganda. Zana was convicted by a court in the city of Diyarbakir for two speeches delivered at the Kurdish political congress and protest in 2008. Zana has previously been convicted for spreading propaganda under Turkey’s anti-terrorism laws, most recently facing a 10-year sentence in 2008 for supporting the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK), a militant Kurdish nationalist group. She remains free pending appeal. Turkey has been accused of using its anti-terrorism laws to suppress Kurdish nationalists. The Kurdish Human Rights Project (KHRP) criticized Turkey’s anti-terrorism laws saying that though they were passed due to heightened security concerns, they have hindered freedom of expression, association, and have been used to suppress certain groups like the Kurds.
Zana was the first women elected to Turkey’s parliament in 1991, and shortly thereafter there were calls for her arrest when she read the Parliamentary Oath in Kurdish. She was sentenced to 15 years in prison, along with other members of her Democracy Party, when the party was banned in 1994. She served 10 years in prison until her conviction was overturned and she was freed from prison in 2004. In calling for a peaceful settlement to issues of Kurdish rights, she had been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1995 and 1998, and was awarded the Sakharov Prize in 1995.

If there is anything we miss about our childhood it has to be the remote controlled cars. Having the most powerful one in the neighborhood gave you a lot of street cred and now we’re all grown up and reality has hit us in the face (well besides the wonderful vehicles we get to review every other week).

Check out this new Nissan Sentra SE-R Drift commercial that shows just how fun remote controlled cars can be. The Nissan Sentra itself? Not so much.

Hit the jump for the video.

– By: Kap Shah

In a bid to try and win some hybrid market share from Toyota and beat back the hybrid gains of Ford, Honda has adopted the stance that dominating the sports hybrid realm is the place to be. The recently released Honda CR-Z — a throwback to the cultish glory days of the beloved CRX — is the first sports hybrid offering from Honda… but it has been met with only mediocre fanfare.

Complaints that it is both underpowered AND doesn’t get as good mileage as it should for such a small hybrid have relegated it to the “meh” list of many industry pundits and green car enthusiasts alike. But, with sales surging in Japan and a higher interest among the public than we all thought possible, it may just be the comeback star Honda was looking for.

And now Motor Trend is reporting on a rumor that Honda is busy prepping a sports hybrid the size of the Accord coupe that will “dwarf the CR-Z in performance.” Add this rumor to the one that Honda is also prepping a revved up Type-R version of the CR-Z and a picture is starting to emerge of where Honda wants to take all of this.

(more…)

Ken Solomon is an artist who paints watercolors of Google Images search results. Here we see his/Google’s version of Lichtenstein’s Brush Stroke as a work in progress. [Ken Solomon via MediaMemo] More »

This is from the New York Times is important (as outlined by me):

1) A stronger renminbi could prove a mixed blessing for the United States. If China cuts back sharply on purchases of Treasuries, then the Obama administration could find it harder to finance American budget deficits.

2) But with the Chinese economy booming, a small move in the renminbi may still leave the central bank struggling with trade surpluses and a tide of speculative investment into China. That could force it to continue buying Treasuries with the extra dollars.

3) A slightly stronger renminbi that fluctuates each day against the dollar will mainly hurt low-margin, labor-intensive industries in China like shoes and textiles, they said. Many Beijing officials have been worried about job losses in these industries if the currency appreciates. Much of this production is already starting to move out of China, notably to Vietnam and Bangladesh, where labor costs have stayed low. And Chinese factories producing these goods have been struggling to find enough workers in the last two months as the economy grew powerfully this winter, stoked by heavy bank lending, strong demand for workers in the retail sector and rising government spending on high-speed rail lines and other infrastructure investments.

4) More high-tech industries, like the production of computers, have tended to favor a stronger renminbi. Further migration of labor-intensive industries to other countries could free up more workers for high-tech work, making it it cheaper for these industries to import materials that are priced in dollars. Such a development would create more Chinese competition for high-tech operations in America, however.

Me: I certainly don’t think the Obama administration views this is a silver bullet for the U.S. economy or the elevated levels of unemployment. More like it might help at the margins. The real benefit of appreciation is avoiding a highly destructive trade war.

Greece’s fiscal problems are turning into one of those endless sagas, the kind we watch unfold at Thanksgiving every year.  Aunt Daphne is going to leave Uncle John!  No, they’re in counseling! Wait, now Aunt Daphne is breaking up with the counselor, too!  The rumors are starting to take on a toxic life of their own, driving up the yields demanded on Greek debt–which in turn, makes it less likely that they’ll be able to finesse the crisis with a moderate infusion of outside cash.

Paradoxically, that seems to be good news for us, pushing our debt yields lower; we are the proverbial “any port in a storm”. This phenomenon is what makes it so difficult to assess the risk of US fiscal trouble.  On the one hand, the US budget is clearly on a completely unsustainable path, and frankly, our household budgets don’t look so much better.  This should make investors nervous about our bonds.

And as far as I can tell, they are.  But they’re even more nervous about bonds everywhere else . . . because everywhere else has worse demographic problems, and a less impressive history of economic growth.  So they aren’t signalling their nerves the way we’d expect, by slowly and steadily pushing up bond yields.

But that in itself is a vulnerability.  If at any point we are not seen as the safest game in town, we will take a gigantic–the better word might be “catastrophic”–hit on our bond interest.  If there’s somewhere safer to park our money, suddenly we lose the premium we currently enjoy for having bonds considered the “risk free” rate.  So while our super-sterling credit rating may delay the onset of a fiscal crisis, if we ever let it get to that point, the onset may be even more sudden and disasstrous than these things usually are.  All the more reason to start getting our fiscal house in order now.

From Green Right Now Reports

Urban youth around the nation will be breaking ground this spring on gardens of native plant species as part of the National Park Foundation’s First Bloom program. Through First Bloom, students experience national parks and have the opportunity to learn important conservation lessons, including the difference between native and invasive plant species.

Youth groups participating in the program work with park rangers to design and plant their own gardens in national parks. First Bloom connects kids between 4th and 6th grades to nature and national parks. The nationwide program is currently taking place in 26 national parks in partnership with 31 youth groups, primarily local Boys and Girls Clubs, across the country.

“One of the most important things anyone can do for the environment is to connect young people to parks,” Neil Mulholland, president and CEO of the National Park Foundation, said in a statement. “Kids who are forging connections with the national parks today are likely to have lasting relationships with the parks and the outdoors for their whole lives.”

Parks with upcoming plantings include:

• Hamilton Grange National Memorial and General Grant National Memorial, NY
• San Francisco Maritime National Historic Park, Calif.
• Cuyahoga Valley National Park, Ohio
• Boston African American National Historic Site, Mass.

The National Park Foundation funded the 2010 First Bloom projects with support from the UPS Foundation, ARAMARK Parks and Destinations through the Yawkey Foundation, and through the support of private citizens and foundations.

Learn more about the First Bloom program at www.first-bloom.org.

In a memo released yesterday, the White House made it significantly easier for federal agencies to use everything from social networks to online forums. But with the newfound freedom comes a surprising caveat: User ratings and rankings on those services, the new guidelines warn, “should not be used as the basis for policy or planning.”

In other words, a million Americans can Digg or retweet an important blog post, but government officials shouldn’t use that popularity as an indicator of the post’s value.

Sponsor

That’s not always a bad thing considering that a dedicated group of like-minded people can game a casual voting system. But the voice of a social network corresponds to real people in the real world. A recent study, for instance, found that Twitter chatter accurately forecasts box-office revenues.

As a whole, the new guidelines [PDF] were sorely needed. Social media and other online activities fell under a law that arduously dictates how agencies handle written materials. Under the new guidelines, online activities are now considered a “public meeting,” which gives agencies much more freedom to blog, hold virtual meetings or even run contests.

That freedom comes with a stipulation. The memo was written by the White House’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs administrator, Cass Sunstein. In it he explains that agencies should “exercise good judgment and caution when using rankings, ratings, or tagging” because they aren’t “statistically generalizable.”

That’s true, but it doesn’t mean they’re worthless. John Zogby, founder of polling firm Zogby International, told us last year that if you keep in mind that social networks don’t necessarily represent the entire scope of the American people, then the data from them has “tremendous, tremendous value.”

At least 66% of all federal, state and local governments now use social media. It’s still early in the current midterm election cycle, but candidates are already investing heavily in social media; Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are the rule, not the exception.

Those candidates will take their online communities with them to Washington when elected. Where else would they expect to get input on public policy than from that same community of voices?

Photo by Dominik Gwarek.

Discuss

April 29^th will be a big day for all you Verizon wireless customers. The HTC Incredible has been confirmed for a Best Buy release on that date. A lot of you have been waiting for a Verizon compatible Nexus One and this may as close as you can get to the Nexus.

Phonearena has gotten their hands on a few inside document for Best buy employees. Along with a few other devices, the Incredible is listed for release on the 29th. Verizon may release it themselves even earlier than that. Looks like it going to be an exciting few weeks for you Verizon customers, let the countdown begin.

Switzer Performance is a performance tuning company that is based out of Oberlin, OH. They specialize in modifying your Nissan, Bentley, Porsche, Mercedes-Benz or VW so that when its done, it’ll take you straight to jail if you let it. Take their current creation for example – the mighty P800 Nissan GTR. Stock the big Nissan managed to pull off some impressive numbers in the way of 416 WHP and 379 TQ. on the dyno.

Switzer then decided that this wasn’t good enough and created what they call the P800. They then threw it back up on the dyno and clicked off 701 WHP and 618 TQ. People, these are numbers that would make any super car, from any manufacturer run for cover.

Want to see 800 horsepower from 93 octane pump gas? Don’t care about voiding your warranty? Got an extra $18,500.00 you don’t need? The P800 package includes a unique ECU calibration and test pipes to replace the catalytic converters. What I really like about Switzer Performance is the fact that they want to create a car that YOU, as the consumer want to drive. Check out their mission statement and see if you don’t agree:

We believe that anyone can sell you “performance” parts you don’t need. At Switzer Performance, we choose to stand apart by actively listening as you explain your goals, understanding exactly what you hope to accomplish, and delivering a unique, finished Porsche built to YOUR individual and exacting standards.

This morning, the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission heard from Robert Rubin and Charles Prince, the former heads of banking behemoth Citigroup.

Prince opened his remarks with regrets. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry the financial crisis has had such a devastating impact for our country. I’m sorry about the millions of people, average Americans, who lost their homes. And I’m sorry that our management team, starting with me, like so many others could not see the unprecedented market collapse that lay before us.” (The apologia deviated from Prince’s prepared statement, which read: “I can only say that I am deeply sorry that our management, starting with me, was not more prescient and that we did not foresee what lay before us.”)

Such candor was unexpected and, at least judging the faces of the commissioners, welcome. But hours of rationalization, blame shifting, and evasion followed during questioning that at times became heated. Indeed, while Rubin and Prince expressed regret in general, they refused to classify their own or any of Citigroup’s actions as anything other than mistakes made in the run-up to an unforeseeable bust.

The commissioners’ questions focused on mortgage-backed securities, the housing bubble, derivatives regulation, Citigroup’s losses and the problem of too big to fail. “I personally do not think Citi was too big to manage,” Prince said, a sentiment Rubin echoed. Prince said the “broad, multifaceted and diversified nature” of Citigroup’s investments and liabilities did not “materially contribut[e] to our losses.”

That statement jarred with Rubin’s testimony; he cited the interconnectedness of financial firms and financial products, which undercut diversification, as particularly destructive during the financial crisis. Asked why he did not recognize the extent of Citigroup’s liabilities until too late, the former Treasury Secretary defensively noted that Citigroup managed “trillions” of dollars every day and the best risk management the company could perform was to put the “right people” in place. He also called Citigroup’s risk management “robust and proactive.”

FCIC Chair Phil Angelides later pointedly asked Rubin, “Do you bear central responsibility for the near-collapse, but for the government, of Citigroup?” He replied that Citigroup’s board, which he led, was not “a substantive part of the decision-making process” at the firm. “All of us in the industry failed to see the potential for this serious crisis. We failed to see the multiple factors at work.”

At Portland Architecture, Brian Libby has posted an intriguing piece (citing an original story by Nathalie Weinstein in the Daily Journal of Commerce) about a possible contemporary art museum in a proposed gateway tower to the Pearl District.

At this point the proposal, by a group of Portland State University graduate students, is something of a pipe dream: there’s a recession going down, and developers are still pretty much in hunker-down mode.

But as Libby points out, the museum part of the proposal gets interesting when you consider two things:

1. The new museum’s collection would be built from the holdings of Portland arts patron Jordan Schnitzer.

2. Schnitzer is president and CEO of Harsch Investment Properties, which owns the two parcels in question, between West Burnside and Northwest Davis streets and Northwest 13th and 14th avenues.

Schnitzer is a significant arts player on the Portland scene, and more and more, along the West Coast. His name is on the University of Oregon’s Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art. His primary focus as a collector is contemporary prints, and he’s serious about it. (Libby’s post includes interesting passages from an interview with Schnitzer by The Oregonian’s D.K. Row). The son of important regional patrons and collectors Arlene and Harold Schnitzer, Jordan Schnitzer has displayed genuine enthusiasm for getting his own continually evolving collection out to museums and educational institutions around the Northwest: He wants people to benefit from what he’s pulled together.

Obviously this is a “soft” report: Nothing concrete is happening. But who knows what might be going on behind the scenes? Portland has longed for a contemporary art museum for a long time, and Schnitzer has both the collection and the educational interest to get something kick-started. In general, metropolitan areas with multiple museums have stronger art scenes, so a viable contemporary art museum would have a ripple effect. Right now, Portland has the Portland Art Museum and the Museum of Contemporary Craft. Our nearest big-town neighbors, Seattle and San Francisco, have much more diverse museum scenes, and that’s made a big difference to their entire arts scenes.

So. Pipe dream or not, let’s keep an eye on this one and see if anything develops.

*

ILLUSTRATION: John Baldessari, “Stonehenge (with Two Persons) Blue,” 2005. Mixographia print on handmade paper. Jordan Schnitzer Collection

What dreamy-eyed boy hasn’t looked up at the stars and wanted to see them speeding past at warp? Well now you can! The once-popular screen saver for Microsoft Windows has made a comeback as a live wallpaper for Android. You can imagine you’re looking out the window of a Federation starship as it traverses the quadrant while you navigate your homescreens. As you swipe to a different homescreen panel, the perspective of the starfield changes letting you see a 180 degree arrangement of stars.

The app lets you add a fixed background behind the moving stars, which looks quite nice but can slow down performance quite considerably. You can also customize the number of stars in the field and also the speed at which they fly past the screen. You can also double tap on the screen to get the warp stretching effect as seen on Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Live wallpapers are known for their detriment to your phone’s battery life, but I haven’t noticed any change in my battery life since having Starfield running. The app is also the best performing live wallpaper I’ve seen so far. It runs perfectly on my HTC Magic with absolutely no lag, even when swiping homescreens.

Final verdict: I was a bit sceptical about the live wallpaper idea at first, and the ones that come standard with Android 2.1 didn’t do anything to change that. Since installing Starfield however, I’ve realized how awesome they really are. I will definitely be keeping this as the wallpaper on my phone since it just adds a little extra pizazz to the device. And since it’s free, you’re almost losing money by not trying it out.

The goods:

• Customizable starfield with optional static background
• Change viewpoint as homescreens pan
• Great performance on lower end phones

Needs improving:

• The only thing I have to criticize is the laggy performance when the background is enabled. In saying that, it probably performs fine on a faster phone such as the Nexus One.

Special Notes: Live wallpapers are only supported on Android 2.1, so you’ll need either a Nexus One/Desire or a Droid/Milestone, or you could take a trip over to xda-developers and hook yourself up with a custom ROM.

Note: This review was submitted by James Finnigan as part of our app review contest.

Related Posts

• Replica Island: Fly, stomp, and roll your way through 40 challenging levels
• xScope Browser: The fastest alternative browser for Android?
• Touiteur: The best damn Twitter application to date
• What the Doodle!?: Come see my skills of an artist!
• Remembeer: Keep track of beers you’ve tried

Last week McLaren brought us there online configurator for the new MP4-12C – today, Koenigsegg has released their configurator for the new Agera supercar. Check it out and have some fun.

Check out our original post on the Koenigsegg Agera here.

Hit the jump for the video.

Refresher: Power for the Koenigsegg Agera comes from the same 4.7L V8 as the CCX. The engine has been twin-turbocharged to produce a total of 910-hp with a maximum torque of 737 lb-ft. That will allow the Agera to go from 0-62 mph in 3.1 seconds with a top speed of more than 240 mph.

Koenigsegg Agera:

– By: Omar Rana

Source: Koenigsegg

Apple introduced the next major revision of it’s mobile operating system today, with a press event to highlight the changes in its iPhone OS 4.0. The developer preview of iPhone OS 4.0 will be released today, with the OS proper seeing a summer ship time.

First up — and possibly demanded the most — is a method of multitasking without a significant hit on the battery life. Apple is offering seven multitasking APIs that developers can utilize, so an app like Pandora, for example, can run in the background, much like Apple’s native apps do today. The APIs include support for audio apps, VoIP (think Skype), location by cell-tower triangulation for directions and LBS apps, local push notifications and task completion in the background.

In typical Apple fashion, the implementation to switch apps is reminiscent of existing design. Tapping the home button twice on an iPhone OS 4.0 device brings a dock-like interface up from the bottom of the screen. Simply tap and switch. From the early sounds of the functionality, the implementation doesn’t appear to be multitasking in the traditional “run multiple apps all the time” vein. Instead, as I read it so far, it’s a very controlled form of task switching, APIs and saving the state of closed apps to reopen them as they were left. Some may find it amusing that the iPhone gets multitasking as Windows Phone 7 loses it.

Now that you can run more apps, how about installing more apps? iPhone OS 4.0 bumps up the allowable number of apps from 180 to 2,160 titles. Well, that would be a mess to muddle through, so Cupertino is providing Folder functionality for organizational purposes. These folders can even be on the Dock, making it easy to get at the most used app groups.

I didn’t call for Folders in the six features I expected to see out of iPhone OS 4.0, but I did mention a unified inbox. Thankfully, I called it correctly. Apple adds multiple inboxes in a single view as well as support for multiple Microsoft Exchange accounts — that’s useful to me because I use Exchange to sync my Google contacts and calendars. Up to now I could only do that for work or personal accounts, but with the new OS, that limitation appears to be gone. Also in the mail app is support for threaded conversations and opening attachments in other installed applications. That should be pretty handy if I was say, trying to open an iPad document attachment for editing in Google Docs with a third-party app.

I’m not surprised that Apple brings iBooks to the new operating system. The company makes money on every paid iBooks content purchase, so why not bring that business model to all iPhone OS devices? Similar to Amazon’s Whispersync functionality, iBooks will pick up where you left off on different devices.

The support for multiple Exchange email accounts will appeal to the enterprise, and that goes hand in hand with new features focused squarely on the corporate environment. The new iPhone OS brings mobile device management and data protection improvements, which will please IT departments with iPhones deployed.

There are already 50,000 games in the App Store according to Apple, and the introduction of the new Game Center puts Microsoft squarely in Apple’s sights. The Game Center is a social gaming network that is similar to Xbox Live from Microsoft. It will be possible for Game Center members to interact with each other to share leaderboards, achievements and play in matches.  The Game Center will go live later this year.

Perhaps the biggest announcement today is the launch of the iAd mobile advertising service. Apple demonstrated fully interactive ads that are placed inside apps to engage the consumer. The ads can stream video, audio and even have full games within the apps that contain the ads. We might see a lot more free apps in the App Store, with iAd content onboard used to generate revenue for the developers in place of app sales. The iAd service takes direct aim at Google’s intent to dominate mobile advertising with the purchase of AdMob. Apple will make a 60/40 split with developers for ad revenues generated by iAd.

The ads will leverage existing capabilities of the iPhone OS. Apple demonstrated a movie ad that interactively showed where the movie was playing locally using the Maps API. This opens up a broad realm of hyper-local ads for products. The ads are like separate apps that live within other apps with the sole intent of selling something to the user. Apple redefines mobile advertising with iAd.

The new OS will appear in the summer, so that is likely when we will see the next generation of iPhone hardware. Apple did not discuss the new phone at the press event. Surprisingly, the new OS will not appear on the iPad until the fall. It is fair to say that most of the new features of iPhone OS 4.0 are particularly applicable to the iPad. Multitasking, app folders and the email improvements will be very welcome on the larger screen.

Older iPhones may not get to upgrade to OS 4.0; they can’t handle it according to a statement from Apple. When asked how multitasking might further impact AT&T’s data network problems, Steve Jobs indicated it might happen, but Apple didn’t foresee multitasking causing greater data usage. That might be wishful thinking.

With the UK’s Digital Economy Bill rushed through with little real debate, it’s worth looking at the ignorance behind those who supported and pushed through the bill. The more you look, the more you realize they didn’t even understand the very basics of what they were talking about. As some have noted it was “a bill proposed by the unelected, debated by the ignorant and voted on by the absent.”

And yes, it was proposed by the unelected Lord Mandelson, who has had to resign from the Government twice before due to accusations of corruption or influence peddling. And, of course, as many have noted, he only became interested in the whole Digital Economy Bill thing after vacationing with David Geffen, the former recording industry and movie industry mogul. After that, he suddenly pushed through the bill which went directly against the recommendations of the Gov’t’s own Digital Britain committee.

Then we get to the ignorant. Perhaps the most stunning is that, via Kevin Marks, we now learn that Digital Britain Minister Stephen Timms, who was in charge of pushing the bill through, didn’t even understand what an “IP address” means. In a letter to an MP, he explained “IP” as an “Intellectual Property Address.”

Now, yes, IP is used for both Intellectual Property and Internet Protocol, but if you actually know what you’re talking about, you don’t mix up the two. And Carlo points us to a message from Will Tovey noting that the Digital Economy Bill originally called an IP address an “Internet Portal” address. These are the people you want deciding the basic internet setup in your country?

And the folks involved in the debate don’t seem to be too keen on understanding details either. During the debate, one MP, Michael Connarty had a bizarre take on the situation:

“People are not talking about co-operating and sharing their own thoughts and content, but are stealing someone else’s content and sharing that. There is an Armageddon, which has partially arrived in Sweden, where the Pirate Party, whose leader is in jail, won seats in the European Parliament on the basis that everybody’s work–including MP4’s–should be free.”

Can you count the number of mistakes there? Of course, the big one is the idea that the leader of the Pirate Party in Sweden is in jail. He’s not. My guess is that Connarty thinks The Pirate Bay and The Pirate Party are the same (they’re not even connected) and that the jail sentences handed down to some of the folks who worked on The Pirate Bay applied to The Pirate Party’s head and that someone was actually in jail (they’re not). But, you know, who needs details when you’re just setting the framework for all internet connectivity and rights across your country?

And, finally, there are the absent. During the little time put forth for debate — where many were vehemently opposed to the bill, notice that the House of Commons was basically empty:

But when it came time to vote? Suddenly over 200 MPs showed up. It makes you wonder why they’re allowed to vote if they haven’t even heard the debate. Especially when the guy in charge of convincing them to vote on this bill doesn’t seem to even understand what’s in it or what it will do.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

APRIL 7, 2010 – Los Angeles City Attorney Carmen Trutanich, in partnership with the Los Angeles Police Department, District Attorney’s Office and local downtown service providers, today gave public notice that his office has filed a new civil injunction action seeking to restrict the narcotics activity of gang members and career criminals in and around the Skid Row area of downtown Los Angeles.

Filed today in Los Angeles Superior Court, the complaint seeks to establish the “Central City Recovery Zone” bordered by 3rd Street on the north; 9th Street to the south: Broadway to the west and Central Street to the east.

The complaint names 80 individuals and one criminal street gang identified by law enforcement as the top narcotics dealers in the Recovery Zone area.  Of the 80 individuals named, 56 have documented evidence of association with more than 30 of the area’s most notorious gangs.  All named individuals in the complaint have also had three or more prior arrests for narcotics sales within the proposed of enforcement.

Terms of the proposed Central City Recovery Zone include provisions restricting named individuals from being present anywhere in the established geographic area of the Recovery Zone, from possessing narcotics, from possessing dangerous weapons, and from using other individuals for the purpose of soliciting narcotics sales.

The complaint includes 124 evidentiary declarations gathered over the course of several months by the City Attorney’s gang prosecutors from law enforcement experts to establish a long existing pattern of criminal conduct and unlawful business practices by the named defendants on Skid Row. According to the declarations, gang members from all over Los Angeles are known to travel to or in some cases move to downtown Los Angeles in order to sell narcotics to the less fortunate and vulnerable who are often times already addicted and seeking services, and subject to relapse.

Narcotics dealers commuting into the Central City Recovery Zone are known to engage directly in street sales of narcotics or use the addicted transient population to sell narcotics in exchange for their own drugs.  Primary sites for dealers to loiter and conduct narcotics business include service provider locations, San Julian Park and Gladys Park.

Our more scholarly siblings over at Consumer Reports recently sat down for an interview with David Vladeck, director of the Bureau of Consumer Protection at the Federal Trade Commission. And while Mr. Vladeck had all sorts of important things to say about scams, frauds and various sorts of hoodwinkery, the most important thing is that he likes us… he really likes us.

When asked if he reads Consumerist, Mr. Vladeck replied:

I certainly look at The Consumerist, not just for complaints but also to spot trends.

That’s right… we’re not just here to help you complain — We’re also trendsetters!

In all seriousness, you should check out the entire interview with Mr. Vladeck over at the CR blog.

And if you’re a Consumerist reader who also happens to be a highly placed government official — or perhaps a titan of industry that follows us religiously — don’t be afraid to let your Consumerist flag fly!