This Man is So Insane. WTF is He Talking About?

Robot Identifies Human Flesh As Bacon

Let the robot holocaust commence: robots think we taste like bacon.

Researchers at NEC System technologies and Mie University have designed the cute little guy to the right: a metal man gastronomist, “an electromechanical sommelier”, capable of identifying wines, cheeses, meats and hors d’oeuvres. Upon being given a sample, he will speak up in a childlike voice and identify what he has just been fed. The idea is that wineries can tell if a wine is authentic without even opening the bottle, amongst other more obscure uses…like “tell me what this strange grayish lump at the back of my freezer is/was.”

But when some smart aleck reporter placed his hand in the robot’s omnivorous clanking jaw, he was identified as bacon. A cameraman then tried and was identified as prosciutto.

Absolutely horrifying. Like cows, once robots taste blood, their hunger for human flesh can never be satiated.

- Via Wired

New Weapons Being Used at The G-20

Fed’s Alvarez Says Audits Could Lead to Higher Rates

Sept. 25 (Bloomberg) -- Federal Reserve General Counsel Scott Alvarez said audits of monetary policy by the U.S. Congress could lead to higher interest rates and reduced confidence in central bank policy.
Congressional audits of monetary policy could “cause the markets and the public to lose confidence in the independence of the judgments of the Federal Reserve,” Alvarez told the House Financial Services Committee today in response to a question from Representative Dennis Moore, a Kansas Democrat. Alvarez said in his prepared remarks the audits would probably “chill” the central bank’s discussions on interest rates.

Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and his colleagues are trying to persuade lawmakers not to pass legislation sponsored by Representative Ron Paul of Texas that would repeal the central bank’s immunity to audits of monetary policy. Fed officials used emergency powers to protect creditors of Bear Stearns Cos. and American International Group Inc. during the financial crisis, prompting congressional scrutiny.

“We don’t want to give the rest of the world or, more important, domestic investors the impression that we are somehow in a formal way injecting Congress into the setting of monetary policy,” said Representative Barney Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat and chairman of the committee. “That could have a very destabilizing effect.”

Frank added that “a lot needs to be done” on Fed transparency and said that Congress can accomplish that without interfering with the independence of monetary policy decisions.
Remove Exemptions Paul’s legislation would remove Fed exemptions from audits in four areas: transactions with foreign central banks; deliberations on monetary policy matters, including discount- window operations; transactions made under the direction of the Federal Open Market Committee; and communications and discussions between the Board, the reserve banks and staff.

Frank said he supports a delay in making some Fed information public, such as the securities it buys and sells, so it doesn’t have a “direct market effect.” Alvarez told Frank that the Fed is “giving serious consideration” to that idea and would be “happy to work with you on it.”
In an interview after the hearing, Paul said the audit powers in the bill may be altered to delay by three to six months releasing information on FOMC actions. The legislation is likely to be included in a broader Democratic package of financial-regulation changes in the House, he said.
‘Gentleman’s Agreement’

“It’s a gentleman’s agreement” with Frank, Paul said, adding that Frank fulfilled an earlier agreement to hold a hearing. “That doesn’t mean it will happen in the Senate,” even as prospects in the upper chamber are improving, Paul said.

In the hearing, Paul told Alvarez that the Fed had “failed” to stabilize interest rates, prices and employment, according to its mandate. “What we need is more oversight and more transparency rather than more authority to the Federal Reserve,” Paul said.

Alvarez said GAO audits of discount-window lending could reduce the effectiveness of “these facilities in promoting financial stability, maximum employment, and price stability.” The legislation could also “disrupt” the Fed’s relationships with foreign central banks, he said.
“Monetary policy independence prevents governments from succumbing to the temptation to use the central bank to fund budget deficits,” Alvarez said in his prepared testimony. “Financial markets likely would see the grant of audit authority to the GAO with respect to monetary policy as undermining the Federal Reserve’s independence.”

The legislation has 295 sponsors in the House, including every Republican member, Rachel Mills, a spokeswoman for Paul, said in an e-mail yesterday.
The Fed is facing other challenges by Congress, including a proposal to strip the central bank of its rule-writing power on some consumer financial products.

-Via Bloomberg

DoJ Official Blows Cover Off PATRIOT Act

In the debate over the PATRIOT Act, the Bush White House insisted it needed the authority to search people's homes without their permission or knowledge so that terrorists wouldn't be tipped off that they're under investigation. Now that the authority is law, how has the Department of Justice used the new power? To go after drug dealers.

Only three of the 763 "sneak-and-peek" requests in fiscal year 2008 involved terrorism cases, according to a July 2009 report from the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. Sixty-five percent were drug cases. Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) quizzed Assistant Attorney General David Kris about the discrepancy at a hearing on the PATRIOT Act Wednesday. One might expect Kris to argue that there is a connection between drug trafficking and terrorism or that the administration is otherwise justified to use the authority by virtue of some other connection to terrorism.

He didn't even try. "This authority here on the sneak-and-peek side, on the criminal side, is not meant for intelligence. It's for criminal cases. So I guess it's not surprising to me that it applies in drug cases," Kris said.

"As I recall it was in something called the USA PATRIOT Act," Feingold quipped, "which was passed in a rush after an attack on 9/11 that had to do with terrorism it didn't have to do with regular, run-of-the-mill criminal cases. Let me tell you why I'm concerned about these numbers: That's not how this was sold to the American people. It was sold as stated on DoJ's website in 2005 as being necessary - quote - to conduct investigations without tipping off terrorists."

Kris responded by saying that some courts had already granted the Justice Department authority to conduct sneak-and-peeks. But Feingold countered that the PATRIOT Act codified and expanded that authority -- all under the guise of the war on terror.
Feingold, the lone vote against the PATRIOT Act when it was first passed, is introducing an amendment to curb its reach. "I'm going to say it's quite extraordinary to grant government agents the statutory authority to secretly break into Americans homes," he said.

Watch-


-Via Huffington Post

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/23/watch-doj-official-blows_n_296209.html

Creepy Microsoft Promo for WIndows 7

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U.S. Large-Loan Bank Losses Triple to $53 Billion

CHARLOTTE, North Carolina (AP) -- U.S. regulators said total losses from large loans at banks and other financial institutions nearly tripled to $53 billion in 2009, due to a deteriorating economic environment and continued weak underwriting standards.

According to an annual report released by the four federal bank-regulatory agencies on Thursday, credit quality deteriorated to record levels this year.

The report said total identified losses of $53.3 billion in 2009 surpassed last year's total of $2.6 billion, and nearly tripled the previous peak in 2002, when losses totaled $19.1 billion.
"While we expected a year-over-year increase in problem assets, given the weak economic environment, declining (commercial real estate) values, and previously weak underwriting, we were surprised by the magnitude of the increase," wrote FBR Capital Markets analyst Scott Valentin in a research note to clients Friday.

Since 2007, banks have been crushed by mounting losses tied to real estate. Rising mortgage defaults since have helped push the U.S. into a recession. While the economic downturn was first pegged to residential mortgage loans, banks and lenders are now having problems with commercial real estate.

The report, called the Shared National Credits Review program, is prepared and jointly released by the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Office of Thrift Supervision. The report defines a "shared national credit" as any loan or formal loan commitment of at least $20 million that was financed by three or more banks.

Total loans across the institutions reviewed in 2009 was $2.9 trillion. The study looked at 8,955 loans given to about 5,900 different borrowers.

The report said foreign banks held about 38 percent of the $2.9 trillion in loans, while about 21 percent of the loans are held by hedge funds, insurance companies, pension funds and other entities.

Via-Cryptogon & AP