And so was tim cook...

Apple CEO Tim Cook may be in trouble with the SEC


White-collar lawyer thinks a Tim Cook email breached SEC rules.

Tim Cook may be in trouble with the Securities and Exchange Commission after sending a private email to CNBC’s Jim Cramer discussing mid-quarter updates, MarketWatch reports.

This email potentially violates the SEC’s Regulation FD rule, which prohibits publicly traded companies from sharing information with someone who could potentially profit from it. The media is generally exempt from this rule, but according to MarketWatch, Cramer “co-manages a portfolio, Action Alerts PLUS, that has a long position in Apple.”

The SEC declined MarketWatch‘s request for comment on the email and potential investigation, but Thomas Gorman, a lawyer at Dorsey focused on defending regulator investigations, said that “At the very least, the SEC will contact Apple to seek context for this disclosure.”


http://fortune.com/2015/08/24/tim-cook-sec/

Islamic Fundamentalists Threaten Muslim-Born Model For Entering Miss Italy Beauty Pageant…







A young model of Moroccan origin is determined to ignore insults and threats she has received on social media and pursue her dream of becoming Miss Italy.

Ahlam El Brinis, 20, was born in Padua to Moroccan parents and has been selected for the semi-final of the Miss Italy beauty contest, which will take place in the coastal town of Jesolo on September 20th.

She lives in Montebelluna near Treviso.

“I would like to keep religion out of Miss Italy,” she told Italian media.

“Miss Italy is a beauty contest, religion doesn’t enter into it and I don’t want everything focused on that.”

El Brinis was selected for the title of Miss Elegance for the north-east region of Friuli Venezia Giulia and is due to take part in the semi-final of this year’s national contest.

Her provocative photographs featuring her in scantily clad bikinis and lingerie have provoked a barrage of insults and threats against her on social media for dishonouring Islam.

“Insults and threats don’t hurt me,” she told La Tribuna di Treviso newspaper.

“I will follow my own path. I have the total support of my family and my boyfriend Christian who uses social media to defend me.”

El Brinis says she was raised Muslim but is a non-practising Muslim.

“Everyone is free to choose and follow their religion in their own way,” she said in an interview. “I am aware that there are more conservative people who might think that I am mistaken about what I do.

“But honestly that doesn’t interest me because I have my family’s support and that is enough for me.


http://www.thelocal.it/20150824/muslim-model-defies-insults-to-pursue-miss-italy-dream

While cheerleading that so called warp drive, I was listening to the father of the emdrive and:
https://youtu.be/4hTdSg47h3k?t=15m40s
From 15m and 40s

What a terrible idea.

Get one, not Vitamix. You won't regret it, not even in a hundred years.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOTleF3WAMU

 

Josh Earnest: The president has indicated his view, that the decision he made, I guess seven years ago now, to add Joe Biden to the ticket as his running mate was the smartest decision he ever made in politics. And, I think that should give you some sense of the president’s view of Vice President’s Biden aptitude for the top job.

Reporter Jonathan Karl: So I assume that means the president would support Vice President Biden to run since it were a better decision than the Secretary of State he chose? You said it was the best decision he made…

Josh Earnest: Yeah. It was.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuIiH1wlCac

Want to bomb Iran? Then support the nuclear deal.

That’s the provocative argument coming from Obama administration officials and other backers of the deal as they promote it before a crucial vote in Congress next month.

In meetings on Capitol Hill and with influential policy analysts, administration officials argue that inspections of Iran’s nuclear facilities under the deal will reveal important details that can be used for better targeting should the U.S. decide to attack Iran.

“It’s certainly an argument I’ve heard made,” said Rep. Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. “We’ll be better off with the agreement were we to need to use force.”

Schiff has already announced his support for the Iran deal. But the argument could be useful as the administration tries to persuade centrist Democrats with a hawkish view of Iran to support the agreement, which provides relief from sanctions for Iran in return for curbs and inspections of its nuclear program. Congress is expected to vote on the deal next month.

Obama officials rarely discuss the concept in public, partly out of concern over long-standing tensions between Iran’s clerical regime and the International Atomic Energy Agency, which will monitor Iran’s nuclear complex under the deal. Iranian officials have often accused IAEA inspectors of being Western agents.

“I can certainly understand why the Iranians wouldn’t like that argument,” Schiff said. “But then the Iranians have made a lot of arguments that we don’t like.”

On Wednesday, The Associated Press reported that the IAEA has privately agreed to allow Iran to conduct its own environmental sampling, under agency supervision, at a sensitive military base where Tehran is thought to have conducted past nuclear weapons research. The details of the agreement are unclear, but such an arrangement would reflect Iran’s deep suspicion of the IAEA and its concerns that the United Nations agency’s inspections might benefit American war planners.

While U.S. officials are guarded in their discussion of military options, “it’s been on their minds for some time,” said one person who has spoken often with the administration’s Iran policymakers.

Analysts said the military benefits of having a clearer view of Iran’s program is an undeniable feature of the agreement.

“If you want to bomb the program, you should be superexcited about this deal,” said Austin Long, a professor at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs who studies U.S. military options against Iran. “The more you know about Iran’s nuclear program and the industrial infrastructure behind that program, the better you will be able to target it.”

Although the U.S. is already well aware of Iran’s major nuclear sites, such as its uranium enrichment plants at Fordow and Natanz, Pentagon planners lack detailed knowledge about the country’s “supply chain” — facilities that build essential components like centrifuges as well as its uranium mines and mills.

“These are exactly the kind of things you would want to destroy, so you don’t just cripple their ability to enrich uranium” but also Iran’s ability to reconstitute their enrichment program, Long said.

The White House has aired the argument once — drawing a furious Iranian response. In a July 17 briefing, press secretary Josh Earnest said “the military option would be enhanced” by the deal, adding that U.S. and Israeli targeting decisions “would be significantly informed … based on the knowledge that has been gained in the intervening years through this inspections regime.”

Iran quickly filed a formal complaint about Earnest’s remarks with the IAEA expressing “grave concern.” It accused the U.S. of breaching the deal with a threat, and warned against “any attempt aimed at obtaining its confidential information.”

The July 14 nuclear deal sets up intrusive inspections and monitoring regime that will be managed by the IAEA, which will assign up to 150 inspectors to the country full time. They will have round-the-clock access to Iran’s nuclear facilities, and a mandate to investigate suspected secret nuclear sites. Iran must also describe the entirety of its nuclear program to the IAEA in much greater detail than it has to date. Under IAEA procedures, and the text of the nuclear deal, the U.S. will have access to that information.

Tehran’s suspicions about Western spying and espionage were a major hurdle in the nuclear talks. Iranian officials have charged that the IAEA collaborates with Western intelligence agencies, saying that they pass information to the U.S. and Israel that has facilitated sabotage of Iran’s program and even led to the killing of Iranian nuclear scientists.

After a mysterious 2012 power outage at Fordow and Natanz, for instance, Iran’s nuclear chief warned “terrorists and saboteurs might have intruded the agency.” And when an atomic scientist was murdered earlier that year, one Iranian official complained that people “who came to Iran under the pretext of inspecting the country’s nuclear facilities have identified Iranian scientists and given their names to the terrorist groups.”

On Monday, Iran’s deputy foreign minister said that Iran’s intelligence service would have to approve any IAEA inspectors seeking access the country. The nuclear deal already states that Iran “will generally allow the designation of inspectors from nations that have diplomatic relations with Iran,” apparently excluding Americans from the IAEA team.

The IAEA’s Iran Task Force had an initial full-time staff of 50 inspectors when it was created in 2012. The nuclear agreement envisions a team roughly triple that size, between 130 and 150. The task force includes technical experts, intelligence analysts and nuclear weapons specialists based in Vienna, where the atomic watchdog agency is headquartered.

New insight into Iran’s program isn’t the only benefit seen by U.S. military and intelligence officials, who worked closely with Secretary of State John Kerry’s negotiating team to help shape a deal to their liking.

For instance, the deal requires Iran to stop enriching uranium at Fordow, a facility buried more than 200 feet under mountain rock that presents a challenging target. Iran’s other enrichment facility at Natanz is also underground — but not as deep and thus far more vulnerable to American bunker-buster munitions.

Intrusive IAEA inspections also allow intelligence officials to worry less about keeping watch over Iran’s known nuclear sites, allowing them to focus on the hunt for any nuclear activity Iran might be conducting in secret.

Multiple intelligence arms of the U.S. government are focused on Iran, including the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency and the CIA’s Iran operations division.

Schiff said he is urging his undecided colleagues to read a classified assessment prepared for Congress by U.S. intelligence agencies, which he said gives him confidence in the ability of U.S. spy agencies to catch Iran in the act of cheating.

He said that Washington would be stepping up cooperation with allies to monitor Iran beyond the declared scope of the nuclear deal’s IAEA inspections.

That point was echoed by Ami Ayalon, a former chief of Israel’s Shin Bet security service, in a recent interview with POLITICO.

“I know something about the American [intelligence] capabilities, and I can tell you that some specific areas, we can improve them with some specific capabilities that we have,” Ayalon said. “I believe that we can reach the point at which, if we share our intelligence… we shall know almost everything what is happening at every site every moment in Iran.”


http://www.politico.com/story/2015/08/iran-nuclear-deal-argument-bomb-121613.html?hp=t1_r

The simple fact is ignoring to save your soul will have exceptionally grave consequences if Hell is true.  These deniers want to wait for "proof" which will only exist after death and their body, as we know it, has been destroyed...


 

China melting down. It is almost as if china was helping Americans to do the right thing: President Trump!

The easiest way for me to boost the amount of phytochemicals in my body: I bought a blendtec...


 

Yes as, sadly, we already know what kind of breaking news we may read weeks or months from now.

Twitter has shut down a network of sites dedicated to archiving deleted tweets from politicians around the world. The sites — collectively known as Politwoops — were overseen by the Open State Foundation (OSF), which reported that Twitter suspended their API access on Friday, August 21st. Twitter reportedly told the OSF that its decision was the result of "thoughtful internal deliberation and close consideration of a number of factors," and that the social media site didn't distinguish between politicians and regular users.

"Imagine how nerve-racking — terrifying, even — tweeting would be if it was immutable and irrevocable?" Twitter reportedly told the OSF. "No one user is more deserving of that ability than another. Indeed, deleting a tweet is an expression of the user’s voice."

The US arm of Politwoops was shut down in June this year, but this new decision affects countries all over the world including Canada, Egypt, India, Ireland, South Korea, Tunisia, Turkey, Norway, and the UK. The Diplotwoops site, dedicated to archiving deleted tweets from diplomats, was also shut down, with the OSF noting that all the accounts had been "extensively used and cited by journalists around the world." The organization's director, Arjan El Fassed, commented: "What politicians say in public should be available to anyone. This is not about typos, but it is a unique insight on how messages from elected politicians can change without notice."

The British arm of Politwoops, known by the handle @deletedbyMPs, was among those affected by Twitter's decision. Jules Mattsson, who runs the account, told The Guardian: "It’s a terrible shame that Twitter has made this decision. Politwoops has been an important new tool in political accountability in the UK and abroad. Politicians are all too happy to use social media to campaign, but if we lose the ability for this to be properly preserved, it becomes a one-way tool."


http://www.theverge.com/2015/8/24/9196969/twitter-shuts-down-politwoops-diplotwoops

Hurricane Danny fizzles: Why are there fewer big hurricanes?

The US is in a historic hurricane drought, according to NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center. The fading of Hurricane Danny, which peaked as a Category 3 storm over the Atlantic, came as no surprise Saturday.



ATLANTA — Hurricane Danny, a small hurricane that at one point reached Category 3 status as it moved across from Africa toward the Leeward Islands, has weakened quickly and by Sunday should be reduced to tropical storm status. An unusually strong atmospheric wind shear can be seen on satellite images Saturday literally whisking the storm away.

To be sure, Danny remains a dangerous development. Slated to hit the Virgin Islands early in the week, the storm could still cause wind-and-rain damage to island interests. But its days as a hurricane are likely over as El-Nino-fueled shearing winds discombobulate its core, weakening it in the process.

“After [Friday's] nearly flawless appearance on satellite images, Danny is now showing signs of a more hostile environment,” writes Brian McNoldy, senior research associate at the University of Miami's Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, on his weather blog. “The micro-hurricane is surrounded by dry air, and is entering a belt of strong vertical wind shear.”


Such hurricane-killing conditions fit a familiar pattern, notable against a national look-back at hurricane Katrina, a category 3 storm that devastated the Gulf Coast, and particularly New Orleans, nearly 10 years ago. NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center recently updated its 2015 hurricane season outlook to say there’s a 90 percent chance that the number of sizable storms will be below normal; its previous chance estimate for a below-normal storm year was 70 percent.

Save for hurricane-turned-cyclone Sandy in 2012, the US mainland has been spared any major hurricane destruction since a spate of big storms, including hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Dennis, struck the Gulf Coast in the mid-2000s. Indeed, a 9-year “drought” in Category 3 or greater storms that reach land is unmatched by any stretch since at least 1850, according to a 2015 NASA study.

That’s not to say it’s been a dull season so far. Already, two big tropical storms – Ana and Bill – have struck the US mainland. (Ana hit South Carolina; Bill struck Texas).

But as for storms building enough brawn to be a real threat, not so much.

Unusually high atmospheric wind shear caused by a historic El Nino event in the Pacific, cooler than normal Atlantic water temperatures, air pressure differentials between the Atlantic and the East Pacific, and even dust from Saharan sand storms all play into dynamics that affect the easterly African weather waves that sometimes curl into Atlantic hurricanes.

Indeed, the same wind shear that’s dismantling Danny is likely the biggest reason for such a stretch of quiet storm years. (Remember, 2005 had 11 named storms, seven of which hit land and five of which caused major damage.)  Colorado State University meteorologist Philip Klotzbach found that wind shear has been record-breaking this summer in the Caribbean, exceeding conditions present during the big El Nino year of 1997.

"As hurricanes develop from thunderstorms, they need to grow tall in the atmosphere as heat and moisture is concentrated in the middle of the storm," the Washington Post's Angela Fritz wrote last month. "If winds are too strong at the upper levels, it can tear a young storm apart, or even prevent it from developing in the first place."

But stay tuned: No matter how battered by wind shear, Danny could still pack a punch by the time it inches across the Atlantic, and – if current tracks hold – might yet threaten the US mainland after passing over the Leeward and Virgin Islands early in the week.

“I've gotten a lot of questions from south Floridians about this storm, and as of now, there is no cause for concern … just cause for attention,” writes Mr. McNoldy, on his blog.


http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2015/0822/Hurricane-Danny-fizzles-Why-are-there-fewer-big-hurricanes


---------------------------------------
How can this be? We know global warming is killing us, by the minute, with bigger hurricanes everyday...

Global Warming: Getting worse
http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2015/05/04/global-warming-getting-worse/

More than 60 people and/or fictional characters have filed to run for president since Thursday.



August 21, 2015 On July 26, a 15-year-old Iowa boy named Brady Olson filed to run for president. Since registering with the Federal Election Commission under a crude pseudonym, Deez Nuts, Olson's joke campaign appears to have spurred an uptick in other less-than-serious presidential filings.

On Wednesday, a Public Policy Polling poll showed Deez Nuts with 9 percent support in North Carolina, resulting in a swarm of media coverage—including some particularly awkward local news segments. On Thursday alone, the FEC posted more than 60 statements of presidential candidacies. Compare that with this Monday and Tuesday combined, when the FEC posted just 12 filings. Or last Thursday, when the commission posted three.


It's incredibly simple to become an "official" presidential candidate. All you have to do is send a Statement of Candidacy, called Form 2, to the FEC office with your name, address, party affiliation, and the office you're seeking. Although this ensures that, at least nominally, it's easy for anyone to run for president, it also makes the FEC an easy target for pranking.

And, as one can tell from some of the more preposterous personal information turned into the FEC lately, none of the information filed by the "candidates" is independently verified by the agency before the filing is posted. If a candidate files Form 2 with "missing or inadequate information," the FEC will send a letter to the candidate. "The letter will request the candidate to submit a new Form 2 within 30 days," according to FEC's official review and referral procedures.

 
Here is a sampling of the more obviously false campaigns of the 60-plus that were launched on Thursday alone. So yeah, this doesn't include Francis J. Underwood, Queen Elsa, or even Elsa is bae, whose filings were all posted Wednesday.

Butt Stuff

The inevitable successor to "Deez Nuts." See also the earlier "Sydneys Voluptuous Buttocks."

Mr. Tyrion Lannister

But really: We wouldn't put it past the American people to vote for everyone's favorite Game of Thrones character. Address listed on the form: Essos St. in Essos, North Carolina.

Mr. Not Sure

This is a pretty straightforward one joke candidate that even your dad would likely appreciate. Who do you support for president? Not Sure! Ha Ha Ha. The candidate's campaign committee: Not Sure for President 2016.

Jean-Luc Picard

To be fair, the captain and commander of the USS Enterprise would probably make for an excellent president. As long as he stays clear of the Borg. Suggested campaign slogan: "Make it so."

Sir TrippyCup aka Young Trippz aka The GOAT aka The Prophet aka Earl

If this person had shortened their name to just "The Prophet," maybe they'd have had a chance.

DOGED Doge coin Dark

A tribute to Shiba Inus? An advertisement for Dogecoin ("favored by Shiba Inus worldwide")? We'll likely never know.

King Prescott Satan

If he wants to corner the Satanist vote, the Prince of Darkness would face stiff competition from at least four other candidates freshly listed Thursday: King Satan Smith, Mrs. Luci Fer, Duke Crantiffinus Adraguizes Poxtificate (of the Committee for Satan's Welfare), and H. Majesty Satan Lord of Underworld Prince of Darkness.

It has been widely analyzed how Washington outsider candidates with zero political experience are getting more play than usual this primary cycle. And while the jokesters above don't have a chance at being the next Donald Trump, they can at least say they're on trend.


http://www.nationaljournal.com/2016-elections/deez-nuts-has-started-a-revolution-20150821?utm_content=buffer79a52&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Michael Mukasey, who was the Unites States Attorney General from 2007 to 2009, showed up on Morning Joe today to discuss the Hillary Clinton private server debacle and how it was going to play out. This wasn’t his first cable news hit on the subject and he’d been making the rounds, pointing out that this investigation “is not a witch hunt,” as he said on interviews over the weekend. Most of the information being discussed was nothing new. The panel talked about how Hillary’s decisions to not only have a private server, but to fail to properly classify the contents was a violation of department policy, if not the law. But then, in response to one question from Scarborough, Mukasey went a step further and said that Clinton may have disqualified herself from elected office if the allegations prove to be true.

Now, that’s a phrase we’ve heard before, but generally in a philosophical sense. “If you do this or that bad thing, you’ve essentially disqualified yourself as being the leader of the free world.” But when the former AG was pressed on the question, he informed the panel that he was speaking specifically of federal statute.

Joking that it was a common subject around his family’s breakfast table, he said, “Title 18. Section 2071.”

Let’s take a look at what he’s talking about. The statute starts out like this in paragraph (a):

Whoever willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, or destroys, or attempts to do so, or, with intent to do so takes and carries away any record, proceeding, map, book, paper, document, or other thing, filed or deposited with any clerk or officer of any court of the United States, or in any public office, or with any judicial or public officer of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.

That’s along the same lines as things we’ve been discussing all along. But the big news is in paragraph (b). (Emphasis added)

Whoever, having the custody of any such record, proceeding, map, book, document, paper, or other thing, willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, falsifies, or destroys the same, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both; and shall forfeit his office and be disqualified from holding any office under the United States. As used in this subsection, the term “office” does not include the office held by any person as a retired officer of the Armed Forces of the United States.

Wouldn’t wiping classified records (assuming that’s proven by the FBI) from your private server, or directing others to do that to the server while it’s sitting in a bathroom in Colorado, qualify as removing, obliterating or destroying said records?

This may shed some new light on why Hillary Clinton has been so unwilling to answer some very basic questions when facing the press. She has finally been asked directly (by Ed Henry) if she either wiped the server or directed that it be wiped. She tried to write that one off with a joke, saying, “What? You mean with a cloth?” But her legal team has surely been looking this situation over very closely and are doubtless aware of Title 18, Section 2071, paragraph (b). If the answer to that question is actually “yes” and she admits it in public, she could well be literally ending her presidential bid, not to mention opening herself up to the possibility of a fine or jail time. (Or both.)

Is this what will finally bring Clinton down? Don’t bet the ranch on it. It would require the will on the part of those not only investigating, but prosecuting the case to see it through to the end. And there will be people in the State Department as well as the media fighting tooth and claw the entire way to keep claiming that this is all some grand machination of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy to derail the hopes of an historic presidential candidate. But at some point the evidence has to build up to the point where the public can’t simply ignore it. So what’s next?

Joe Biden… call your office.


http://hotair.com/archives/2015/08/24/former-attorney-general-clinton-may-have-disqualified-herself-for-elected-office/