Octopus Overlords

LordMortis wrote:it's really hitting home with that arbitrary line we drew at January 1st, 2001, looking forward.

Isgrimnur wrote:

LordMortis wrote:it's really hitting home with that arbitrary line we drew at January 1st, 2001, looking forward.

September 11th, 2001 is a more pertinent line, and the opposite of arbitrary.

On the global stage, who did we hate during the 90s? I can't recall, aside from continued Iraq discontent.

U.S. customs officials have seized $25 million worth of aluminum linked to a Chinese billionaire accused of stockpiling the metal across the world, the Wall Street Journal reported this morning.

The Obama administration also launched a formal complaint Thursday against the Chinese government with the World Trade Organization over subsidies it says Beijing provides to the country’s vast aluminum industry.

The move against the stockpile of aluminum connected to Chinese billionaire Liu Zhongtian, the owner and CEO of aluminum company China Zhongwang, is the strongest action yet by federal authorities probing whether U.S. companies connected to the Chinese magnate illegally avoided nearly 400% tariffs by routing the metal through other countries.

We previously reported the whereabouts of the aluminum stockpile as it curiously moved around the globe. China Zhongwang has denied any connection to the stockpile or its movements, but hundreds of shipping containers of aluminum were seized this week by the Department of Homeland Security. The containers are owned by Perfectus Aluminum, Inc., a California company founded by Mr. Liu’s son, Liu Zuopeng. Perfectus is now run by one of Liu’s close business associates, Jacky Cheung, who runs several companies with connections to Liu.

Homeland Security is conducting laboratory tests on the aluminum to determine whether the metal is restricted under U.S. law, according to federal court documents. The seized aluminum is in the form of pallets and court records don’t state which company manufactured the aluminum. The WJ saw shipping records which show that a separate company called Peng Cheng — which later became part of Perfectus in a merger—imported the metal from an affiliate of China Zhongwang in 2013 and 2014.

June 29, 2015
by Lisa Weintraub Schifferle
Attorney, Division of Consumer and Business Education, FTC

Tired of robocalls? The FTC just shut down Payless Solutions, a scam using illegal robocalls to lie about lowering your credit card interest rate.

LordMortis wrote:If Tigers are orange and Trump is Orange and Trump is obsessed with winning, can we assume that Trump's got Tiger Blood and the Sheen's?

Enough wrote:

LordMortis wrote:If Tigers are orange and Trump is Orange and Trump is obsessed with winning, can we assume that Trump's got Tiger Blood and the Sheen's?

If god is love and love is blind, can we assume that Stevie Wonder is god?

Enough wrote:Colorado has some of the most permissive oil and gas regs in the nation, far looser than places like TX, OK and WY that most instinctively would think would have a lighter regulatory burden. I was just reading how a biking trail along the Poudre River I regularly use has to be rerouted so that they can drill 50 horizontal wells (fracked) on a pad within a 1/4 mile of the river (this is in city limits). Yay, us.

Rip wrote:

The humanitarian crisis in northeastern Nigeria is so bad that almost all children under 5 have died.

Feds have launched an investigation into why the Department of Homeland Security hacked into the Georgia state governmental network, including its election system, The Daily Caller News Foundation’s Investigative Group has learned.

John Roth, inspector general for DHS, wants to know why the agency broke protocol on its way to 10 unprecedented attacks on the system overseen by Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp — who is also one of the most vocal critics about the Obama administration’s attempt to designate local and state election machinery as part of federal “critical infrastructure.”

A Jan. 17 letter from Roth notified Kemp his office was officially “investigating a series of ten alleged scanning events of the Georgia Secretary of State’s network that may have originated from DHS-affiliated IP addresses.” A firewall in Georgia’s system thwarted each attempt.

Former DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson and Kemp have clashed over a federal government designation of election systems as “critical infrastructure.” Kemp called it “political power play to federalize elections.”

Johnson sparked a firestorm among state-level secretaries of state – Democrat and Republican alike — when he announced Jan. 6, two weeks before leaving office, that he was unilaterally issuing the designation.

If Roth’s investigation shows Johnson or his subordinates deliberately used federal cybersecurity resources to penetrate a state election system in order to pressure a state official over a policy dispute, it could represent a significant scandal for Johnson and for the outgoing Obama administration.

The “scans” are attacks to test security weaknesses in a network. It’s called the electronic equivalent of “rattling doorknobs” to see if they’re unlocked — or on a darker side, to send a message to a recipient.

Georgian IT specialists traced 10 such scans back to a DHS IP address. DHS officials confirmed the attacks came from an unnamed contractor attached to the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Glynco, Georgia, a part of DHS.

stessier wrote:Yeah, Deadspin totally got pwned.

Rip wrote:http://dailycaller.com/2017/01/25/exclu ... on-system/

Feds have launched an investigation into why the Department of Homeland Security hacked into the Georgia state governmental network, including its election system, The Daily Caller News Foundation’s Investigative Group has learned.

John Roth, inspector general for DHS, wants to know why the agency broke protocol on its way to 10 unprecedented attacks on the system overseen by Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp — who is also one of the most vocal critics about the Obama administration’s attempt to designate local and state election machinery as part of federal “critical infrastructure.”

A Jan. 17 letter from Roth notified Kemp his office was officially “investigating a series of ten alleged scanning events of the Georgia Secretary of State’s network that may have originated from DHS-affiliated IP addresses.” A firewall in Georgia’s system thwarted each attempt.

Former DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson and Kemp have clashed over a federal government designation of election systems as “critical infrastructure.” Kemp called it “political power play to federalize elections.”

Johnson sparked a firestorm among state-level secretaries of state – Democrat and Republican alike — when he announced Jan. 6, two weeks before leaving office, that he was unilaterally issuing the designation.

If Roth’s investigation shows Johnson or his subordinates deliberately used federal cybersecurity resources to penetrate a state election system in order to pressure a state official over a policy dispute, it could represent a significant scandal for Johnson and for the outgoing Obama administration.

The “scans” are attacks to test security weaknesses in a network. It’s called the electronic equivalent of “rattling doorknobs” to see if they’re unlocked — or on a darker side, to send a message to a recipient.

Georgian IT specialists traced 10 such scans back to a DHS IP address. DHS officials confirmed the attacks came from an unnamed contractor attached to the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Glynco, Georgia, a part of DHS.

YellowKing wrote:Not sure if this was pointed out previously, but the Keepin' it 1600 podcast guys many of us followed during the election have created a new post-Trump podcast called "Pod Save America."

Rip wrote:No I think I just pointed to nefarious actions by the feds.

Thankfully the people's POTUS is on it......

KKBlue wrote:Sorry to interrupt but I almost cried out with a wild Twilight Zone scream

So, like, I clicked the little orange square to be brought to the last place I read on the thread.
Started reading and it seemed the comments were rather strange. Looked around to get my bearings. Happy I've learned to check dates in these things because I last visited in 2013! Page 5 is where I left off. Current page is numbered in the hundreds!

Whew, that was a close one.

KKBlue wrote:Sorry to interrupt but I almost cried out with a wild Twilight Zone scream

So, like, I clicked the little orange square to be brought to the last place I read on the thread.
Started reading and it seemed the comments were rather strange. Looked around to get my bearings. Happy I've learned to check dates in these things because I last visited in 2013! Page 5 is where I left off. Current page is numbered in the hundreds!

Whew, that was a close one.

LordMortis wrote:Not a revelation and the author overstates their case IMO but it's still a worthwhile testimonial to read, IMO.

https://www.autostraddle.com/i-was-trai ... ah-367057/

Evangelical conservatives are convinced that their agenda will save the country from God-ordained death. Pat Robertson and many others believe that natural disasters are sent from God specifically to punish America for letting marginalized people have rights and be alive. This motivates them to do everything in their power to “save” the country from the ungodly – even, maybe especially – if it involves stripping others of the freedoms they deem to be against God’s wishes. They don’t care if their war for Christ hurts humans they see as living wrongfully, because they are capital “R” Right and that’s what matters. Their Rightness, they believe, comes from God Himself. Their beliefs are callous and without empathy, prioritizing dogma over people. These beliefs are dangerous. Many of us who have come out as queer, trans, or even merely gone to college, have lost family because of this worldview. A single powerful person who is convinced of their own Rightness with no thought of introspection is dangerous. We now have a government full of them.

The exchange between White and Max Gorden from Spectrum News happened after the conclusion of a Homeland Security Forum hosted by freshman state Rep. Kyle Biedermann, R-Fredericksburg, where invited speakers gave testimony on the dangers posed by radical Muslim organizations.

After the forum had ended, Biedermann spoke to reporters alongside two of the guest speakers.

Gordon attempted to ask the legislator whether he would be planning any forums on radicalism seen in other faiths, but Biedermann largely ignored him as others began to yell insults and criticize Gorden for having asked the question.
...
“How you dare you say that, you low-life son of a bitch,” White said in the video.

White, who was elected in 2014 and served one term, came under fire two years ago for asking visitors to her district office to sign a pledge of allegiance to the U.S. during Texas Muslim Capitol Day, when Muslims come to the Capitol to visit and discuss legislation with their local representatives.

Smoove_B wrote:I have to admit that I'm a little freaked out that I must follow "resistance" pages of Federal agencies on Twitter that last week were providing me with information about their various fields. That being said, the one for the CDC has the best header image I've seen.