Federal Web sites knocked out by cyber attack, including cyber crime agency

By GottaLaff

Feeling a tad insecure? Yeah, me too:

A widespread and unusually resilient computer attack that began July 4 knocked out the Web sites of several government agencies, including some that are responsible for fighting cyber crime, The Associated Press has learned.

The Treasury Department, Secret Service, Federal Trade Commission and Transportation Department Web sites were all down at varying points over the holiday weekend and into this week, according to officials inside and outside the government. Some of the sites were still experiencing problems Tuesday evening. [...]

It was not clear whether other government sites also were attacked.

Others familiar with the outage, which is called a denial of service attack, said that the fact that the government Web sites were still being affected three days after it began signaled an unusually lengthy and sophisticated attack. [...]

According to [Ben Rushlo, director of Internet technologies at Keynote Systems], the Transportation Web site was "100 percent down" for two days, so that no Internet users could get through to it. The FTC site, meanwhile, started to come back online late Sunday, but even on Tuesday Internet users still were unable to get to the site 70 percent of the time.

"This is very strange. You don't see this," he said. "Having something 100 percent down for a 24-hour-plus period is a pretty significant event."

He added that, "The fact that it lasted for so long and that it was so significant in its ability to bring the site down says something about the site's ability to fend off (an attack) or about the severity of the attack."

Follow the link for more.

2 Japanese Carrying $134 Billion In U.S. Bonds Detained In Italy

By GottaLaff

Billion, with a B:

Update: June 17th: Suitcase With $134 Billion Puts Dollar on Edge: Bloomberg

Update June 16th: We’ve updated this story $134 Billion U.S. Bond Mystery Continues In Italy

Update: Italy’s financial police said they asked the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to authenticate $134 billion worth of undeclared U.S. government bonds found in the false bottom of a suitcase carried by two Japanese travelers attempting to cross into Switzerland. A determination is expected within a few days.

Original Post

According to Japan Today, two Japanese nationals were detained by Italian financial police last week after trying to enter Switzerland with $134 billion worth of undeclared U.S. bonds, mostly Treasury bonds, an Italian daily said Wednesday. [...]

According to the report in il Giornale, two unidentified Japanese in their 50s concealed the bonds, including 249 U.S. Treasury bonds each worth $500 million, in a suitcase with a false bottom that was searched by the Italian authorities June 3 when they were in Chiasso, at the border with Switzerland, about 50 kilometers north of Milan. [...]

The treasure was in the hands of two Japanese from Italy were trying to enter Switzerland. In a suitcase were 249 bonds of the ‘Federal Reserve‘ American in the nominal value of 500 million each, and 10 ‘ bond Kennedy ‘ of the nominal value of $ 1 billion each, in addition to what is described as very original banking documentation. [...]

Source – Japan Today

Guardia di Finanza – (Italian)

H/t: Fernando

Yikes

By GottaLaff

Um...

On C-Span, Rep. Paul Kanjorski (D-PA) explained how the Federal Reserve told members of Congress about an electronic run on the banks "to the tune of $550 billion dollars" within "an hour or two" last fall.

According to Kanjorski, on September 18, 2008 the Fed tried to "stem the tide" by pumping money into the financial system but it didn't work and decided instead to announce an immediate increase in deposit insurance to $250,000 per account to stop the panic.

Said Kanjorski: "If they had not done that, their estimation is that by 2 p.m. that afternoon, $5.5 trillion would have been drawn out of the money market system of the U.S., would have collapsed the entire economy of the U.S., and within 24 hours the world economy would have collapsed. It would have been the end of our economic system and our political system as we know it."

Gulp.

The inconvenient truth hurts

By GottaLaff

This is why it matters who is in the White House. To all those Neanderthal ignorami who scoffed at Al Gore:

Even if by some miracle the nations of the world could bring carbon dioxide levels back to those of the pre-industrial era, it would still take 1,000 years or longer for the climate changes already triggered to be reversed, scientists said Monday.

Not 10, not 100, but 1,000 years. 1,000.

The gas already here and the heat that has been absorbed by the ocean will exert their effects for centuries, according to an analysis published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Here are a few examples of Bush's war on science. Out of contact with reality much? While tin-eared naysayers were busy protecting special interests, things were getting seriously out of hand.

No, BushCo isn't solely responsible for this crisis, but they wasted 8 precious years ignoring the Inconvenient Truth and destroying the environment with their ugly Bush stains.

[C]hanges in rainfall patterns will bring droughts to the American Southwest, southern Europe, northern Africa and western Australia comparable to those that caused the 1930s Dust Bowl in the U.S.

"People have imagined that if we stopped emitting carbon dioxide, the climate would go back to normal in 100 years, 200 years," lead author Susan Solomon, a senior scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said in a telephone news conference. "That's not true."

The changes will persist until at least the year 3000, said Solomon, who conducted the study with colleagues in Switzerland and France.

Scientists familiar with the report said it emphasized the need for immediate action to control emissions. [...]

"The policy relevance is clear: We need to act sooner, even if there is some doubt about exactly what will happen, because by the time the public and policymakers really realize the changes are here, it is far too late to do anything about it," Trenberth said. [...]

The slowness with which ocean water circulates is central to the new findings. [...] That gas accounts for about half of the global warming caused by greenhouse gases, but the other gases are removed from the atmosphere more quickly. Thus, the long-term influence of carbon dioxide will have the greatest effect on climate change, the report said.

Moreover, heat absorbed by the ocean is released slowly, and will continue to contribute to global warming even if the concentration of greenhouse gases should decline, the authors said. [...]

Melting of the icecaps could increase sea levels even more, inundating low-lying islands and continental shorelines, but the effects are too uncertain to quantify, Solomon said.

Reductions in rainfall would also last centuries, the report said, decreasing drinking water supplies, increasing fire frequency and devastating dry-season farming of wheat and maize.

Sleep well.

Can America Survive Without Detroit?

By GottaLaff

Via Business Week's Ed Wallace:

America thinks it's debating the logic of bailing out Detroit, but what we are actually talking about is the future of American manufacturing. [...]

Let me ask you two questions:

1. Do you believe we should lend Detroit $50 billion to save itself from this economic turmoil?

2. Do you believe that we should lend the American economy $50 billion to save it for you and your children?

Not incidentally, those two questions might actually be the same. [...]

Detroit has it right: If its automakers declare bankruptcy, the likelihood of their emerging as viable businesses is near zero. Their sales will fall faster than they can reorganize. [...]

[A] new contract was drawn up with the United Auto Workers last year that allows new hires in many positions to be paid as little as $14 an hour.

The significance of that was lost on most, but for the first time since World War I we will have people building automobiles in America who won't be able to afford the vehicles they build. Somehow we are led to believe that's real progress. [...]

One of the key reasons the Big Three have so many dealerships is that they have outlets in cities where Nissan (NSANY), Honda (HMC), or Toyota can't claim any type of business. Detroit's trucks may be taking a pounding right now in the press, but let Detroit go away and see what happens to American agribusiness.

That's right: Detroit has a strong presence across the Great American Midwest. In states like Kansas you will find GM dealers in no fewer than 54 counties, while Toyota dealerships can be found in only eight. The reality is that after a few planting seasons, given reasonable crop prices on the commodities market, one day sales of new pickup trucks will again make more money for Detroit than all of the Chevy Volts they may or may not make.

And are you really suggesting that American farmers be given the choice of Tundras or Titans in the future? What a wonderful parting gift for Japan.

One would think the media might be a bit more sympathetic to this crisis, given how many of that industry's jobs hinge on the outcome. After all, there are years when total automotive advertising can reach upwards of $15 billion annually. But not this year; and already we are seeing jobs melting away in the media—from radio stations to TV and with print publications—because of this automotive downturn. Let Detroit go away, and you're talking about a decade-long drought for the Fourth Estate.

Not to mention the impact it would have on professional sports. GM has already pulled sponsorships at some Nascar tracks and dropped the Super Bowl. [...]

Additionally, if Detroit fails, [...] we will lose the income tax revenue from their workers, not to mention the tax revenue from their suppliers' workers, and so on down the line as they all become unemployed. And they won't have much if anything besides food stamps to spend, so there goes all that sales tax and interest income, too. [...]

We were led here by 28 years of new government rules moving us toward "anything goes" capitalism—and that brand should never have been confused with American capitalism, in which laws protect buyer and seller and whose dealings are characterized by integrity, honesty, and sanity. [...]

Americans love underdogs but hate losers. Bankruptcy would move Detroit into the latter column, and America wouldn't be far behind.

Ed Wallace is a recipient of the Gerald R. Loeb Award for business journalism, given by the Anderson School of Business at University of California at Los Angeles, and is a member of the American Historical Society.

H/t: Eve

Paulson’s Blank Check

By GottaLaff

See if this makes you as jumpy as it made me.

Via Firedoglake:

No one who foresaw the crisis, such as Krugman or Stiglitz, is involved in making the plan to fix it.

The man overseeing the bailout is the ex-CEO of Goldman Sachs, a Wall Street Company. He helped cause the crisis.

Paulson helped obtain the SEC exemption which allowed brokerages to increase leverage to 60:1 from 12:1.

The money is Paulson's to use for buying commercial and residential mortgages and mortgaged backed securities as he chooses. No one has any oversight over him, and he can pay any price he wants to, including face amount of the debt.

Courts cannot review his decisions, not can any regulators. He has to report to Congress once every six months.

He gets 700 Billion dollars to use as he sees fit, looking after the taxpayer is a "consideration" not a requirement.

Bet on that 700 Billion dollars being gone before January 20, 2009. Bet on Treasury asking for more.

That is $2,324 dollars per man, woman and child in America

There is no bailout for mortgage holders. Banks get bailed out, but not ordinary people.

Banks and brokerages made record profits these last eight years. Ordinary Americans barely broke even.

In 2007 Wall Street paid itself bonuses equal to the raises of 80 million Americans.

Banks bailed out by this plan need make no changes in how they do business.

Banks bailed out need not replace the management which drove them into insolvency.

Shareholders and bondholders of such banks do not lose a cent.

The securities which caused this crisis are still allowed.

Expect the 700 billion dollars to increase inflation, especially in oil.

Bush is asking you to trust his administration with 700 billion after spending 580 billion on the Iraq war. Do you trust him?

The text of the bill is here. As I've said before, I glaze over at this stuff, but from what I've read here, I'm not thrilled. I wasn't to begin with, but this is an easy-to-understand list, and it has increased my not-thrilledness.

H/t: One of our Anonymi

Do not, I repeat DO NOT** support the key prank at the convention

Absolutely no diss to Joeyess, it was a grand idea. BUT, from Salon-

McCain has himself described having an adverse reaction to the sound of jangling keys, which reminds him of his Vietnam jailers. McCain also told doctors that during solitary confinement he had strayed pretty "far out" and had referred to himself as "mentally deteriorating."

It could be and would be interpreted as teasing or mocking McCain's PTSD.

**I'm going to take a presumptuous hit on this and say I can't and shouldn't tell people what to do or not. But I cannot see any good coming out of this. Joey had a brilliant idea that stands alone. He had no knowledge of this fact and cannot be faulted. If we want to use this as a springboard to discussions of McCain's PTSD issues, IMHO that would be the way to go.