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House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer gave an excellent speech this morning at an event hosted by "Third Way." (**UPDATE 11:30 pm: here is a link to a C-SPAN video that covers Hoyer's speech and Q and A and the panelist opening remarks, but not the panelist Q and A.) I thought he well-modeled that "third way" behavior by pointing out how the typically polarized positions on three major fiscal policy debates: (i) stimulus vs. deficit reduction, (ii) (reducing the deficit via) tax increases vs. spending cuts, and (iii) being for extending the Bush tax cuts or against them–the notion that it has to be all one and not any of the other–is neither productive nor reasonable. I thought he showed great courage and determination to make these statements and moves toward that middle path before leadership from the other side of the aisle shows any such willingness.
On the false claims by some politicians that one has to be either for attending to the short-term economy or for reducing the deficit (that we can't "both walk and chew gum"), Hoyer remarked (emphasis added):
"It's an excellent measure of someone's seriousness to see whether they point their finger at so-called 'out-of-control spending' in this Congress, or whether they face the real danger to our future—the structural deficit. Overreacting to short-term deficits, while we're still feeling the effects of recession, will send our economy back into a tailspin, put even more Americans out of work, and increase the very deficits we are trying to reduce. It's the mistake President Roosevelt made in 1937, when he prematurely cut off recovery from the Depression—and it's a mistake we must not repeat. "For the sake of the millions of Americans who are still struggling, job creation must still be Congress's top priority. But we've seen resistance to more justifiable efforts to create jobs with unpaid spending, and even to keep teachers at work educating our children, because of concerns about the deficit. And many Members of Congress agree with the Washington Post, when it argued in an editorial this month, 'We'd find the stimulus-now, spinach-later argument more credible if its advocates gave some hint of where the long-term belt-tightening will take place.' I agree. An excellent way to build support for the job creation we still need is making credible and detailed plans to tackle the long-term debt. So now is the time to start talking about a solution to the structural deficit—one we'll be ready to put in place once the economy is fully recovered. And on the issue of how to reduce deficits over the longer term and whether it is sensible or desirable to do it entirely with spending cuts or entirely with tax increases, Hoyer avoided taking the "opposite corner" from the one Republican plan for fiscal sustainability, explaining it this way (emphasis added): "It isn't possible to debate and pass a realistic, long-term budget until we've considered the bipartisan commission's deficit-reduction plan, which is expected in December. I believe that Congress must take up and vote on that plan. "To share sacrifices fairly, and to be politically viable, the commission's proposal can only have one form: an agreement that cuts spending and raises revenue when the economy recovers. "On the spending side, we could and should consider a higher retirement age, or one pegged to lifespan; more progressive Social Security and Medicare benefits; and a stronger safety net for the Americans who need it most. We also need the in-depth scrutiny of defense spending that Secretary Gates has demanded…I wish more of us in public life were as honest about hard budget choices as Secretary Gates. I'm also glad that Chairman Ike Skelton is directing the House Armed Services Committee to scrutinize the defense budget for cost savings… "Raising revenue is part of the deficit solution, too. When President Clinton did so in 1993, he faced predictions of disaster—but he helped to unleash historic prosperity and budget surpluses for our country, and he did it without raising spending. So I'm glad that President Obama has made clear that everything, revenues included, should be on the commission's table. I'm also glad that some of my colleagues in Congress are talking seriously about simplifying the tax code to raise revenue more fairly and efficiently and increase economic productivity by cutting time lost on tax preparation. "Why am I so sure that a spending-and-revenue compromise is the only plan that has a chance of succeeding? Because a spending-only plan has been on the table for more than two years. It's Republican Congressman Paul Ryan's Roadmap, and it was originally introduced in May of 2008. Even though I strongly oppose its severe Medicare cuts for seniors, I've praised Congressman Ryan for being the only one in his party to offer a solution equal to the problem. But what have we heard from his own party? Crickets. For two years. The Republican Party has run away from Paul Ryan's plan, even though you'd expect it to rush to embrace a proposal based on spending cuts. As the Cato Institute's Michael Tanner observed last month, 'The Ryan Roadmap is a test, and right now the Republican Party is failing it.' "Nevertheless, I'm still fairly hopeful that we can reach a balanced solution—in large part, because we have a history of success to draw from. In the 1980s, President Reagan and Speaker Tip O'Neill agreed on Social Security reform, and Reagan and Chairman Dan Rostenkowski agreed on tax reform. In 1990, the first President Bush agreed with congressional Democrats on a compromise to raise the top marginal tax rate and cut spending. Three years later, President Clinton enacted a similar spending-and-revenue agreement, even though Republicans unanimously said 'no.' What happened? Spending fell from 22% of GDP to 18%, revenues rose from 17% to 21%, and the Reagan-Bush deficits were wiped out. President Clinton and Speaker Gingrich also took our country in a more fiscally responsible direction by agreeing on the reauthorization of PAYGO. So let's not pretend that what I'm proposing can't be done—it was done, within the lifetime of every Member of Congress. And finally, on the issue of what to do about the Bush (or "Bush/Obama") tax cuts, I thought Hoyer made the strongest statement yet from any Democratic leader (in the Administration or Congress) on the need to take a "middle path"–a path neither proposed by President Obama nor even forced by the PAYGO rules as passed by the Democratic Congress and signed by President Obama (emphasis added):
"It is essential that we move from temporary extensions to permanent solutions, but we cannot consider those solutions without taking into account our long-term fiscal challenges. Permanent solutions for the estate tax, AMT, and the 'doc fix' should be developed in the context of the broader budget agreement that I'll discuss shortly. And as the House and Senate debate what to do with the expiring Bush tax cuts in the coming weeks, we need to have a serious discussion about their implications for our fiscal outlook, including whether we can afford to permanently extend them before we have a real plan for long-term deficit reduction. At a minimum, the House will not extend the tax cuts benefitting taxpayers of incomes above $250,000, despite some suggestions in the Senate that they be extended along with all other Bush tax cuts. As CBO Director Doug Elmendorf recently warned, extending all of the Bush tax cuts without making any other changes in policy would put us on a path toward a publicly-held debt equal to 90% of GDP by the end of the decade, 'territory that is unfamiliar to us and to most developed countries in recent years.'
And to that false choice (being either for the Bush tax cuts or against them), I would add the false choice that we could either only: (i) temporarily extend all of the Bush tax cuts, or (ii) permanently extend just the "middle-class" tax cuts that President Obama has proposed (permanently) extending. I happen to believe (and I have said this before) it would be possible and desirable to push for only temporary extension of only the "middle-class" portion of the Bush tax cuts–which is still most of the tax cuts (over $2 trillion out of $2.6 trillion worth over ten years) to most of the people (actually benefitting all of the people who benefit from the current Bush tax cuts, even those taxpayers who reach the upper brackets but also pass through all the lower ones), and would provide most of the short-term stimulative benefit we could hope to get out of extending the Bush tax cuts (because it would provide immediate tax cuts that would have more "bang per buck" in being less concentrated on the rich).
And if we only temporarily extended only the middle-class portions of the tax cuts, that would be tax policy that recognizes and reconciles the need for continued short-term stimulus with the need for longer-term deficit reduction. As I commented to CQ's Richard Rubin, besides this "third way" or "middle path" approach to the Bush/Obama tax cuts making economic sense, I think this is not such a difficult political position for a policymaker to place oneself:
In addition to the concerns from moderates, more liberal Democrats who opposed the tax cuts in 2001 and 2003 as being fiscally irresponsible during a time of budget surpluses will have a hard time explaining why extending them amid budget deficits makes sense. The answer, said Rogers of the Concord Coalition, may be a temporary extension of the cuts that avoids raising taxes during an economic downturn and does not carry such a big price tag.
"An easier position for them to defend is maybe insisting that any extension of the Bush tax cuts be only temporary, but not permanent," she said. "It's not like they're opposing the tax cuts. They're opposing the fiscally irresponsible part of the tax cuts."
The Washington Post's Lori Montgomery reported on the Hoyer speech in advance of the speech. Incidentally, I think she pretty substantially understates the cost of extending the "middle-class" portions of the Bush tax cuts when she cites a figure of "at least $1.4 trillion" out of an "about $3 trillion" cost of the full complement–suggesting opting for the Obama-desired portions only would save about half the cost. The Congressional Budget Office's analysis of the President's budget published in March suggests the Obama-proposed permanent extensions of the "middle-class" portions of the Bush (2001 and 2003) tax cuts would cost $2.154 trillion over ten years, without interest costs, while the CBO's earlier (January) budget outlook report showed the permanent extension of the entirety of the tax cuts would cost $2.567 trillion. Even President Obama's own budget acknowledges the upper-income portions of the Bush tax cuts that the Obama Administration is proposing to let expire would only save (relative to the full policy-extended baseline) $678 billion out of $3.097 trillion (which is where Lori must have gotten her "about $3 trillion" figure, but I'm still not sure where her $1.4 trillion figure comes from).
More later on this morning's Hoyer speech and the excellent panel that followed and reemphasized some of these middle-path, reasonable strategies.
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subset: commoncrawl


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Transportation Security Administration officers will begin voting on their first-ever labor contract Oct. 1, according to the American Federation of Government Employees.
AFGE and TSA reached a tentative agreement on the contract in August. The security officers will have until Nov. 2 to cast their vote.
"This agreement will also strengthen officers' ability to carry out TSA's vital mission of protecting the American people by fostering a family-friendly workplace where the employees have greater job satisfaction and feel supported in performing their important security work," AFGE noted.
The contract would end the controversial Performance Evaluation and Standards System. It would require more communication between managers and employees to explain expectations and mandate more frequent updates on performance evaluations.
If ratified, the contract would create new awards for employees at both the national and local levels. It would reform the leave process, as well as the process for shift bidding and trading. The contract places an emphasis on seniority, giving officers who have been with the agency the longest advantages in nearly every aspect of employee competition.
The contract also would nearly double the current $232 annual uniform allowance.
Voting on the contract will be conducted on-site at large airports and by mail at other locations. Ratification requires a simple majority of officers to vote in favor of the contract. If ratified, the contract will run three years.


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Lawsuit Claims Accidental Google Search Led To Years Of Government Investigation And Harrassment
from the so-plausible-yet-so-bizarre dept
We've seen a few lawsuits filed over autocomplete suggestions, but those have all been aimed at Google by people who failed to understand a) how search engines work, and b) the unintended consequences of their actions. Targeting a search engine for unflattering autocomplete suggestions tends to make the problem worse. Each legal effort only results in more stories "confirming" the autocomplete suggestions.
This lawsuit is a bit different. The plaintiff is arguing that an accidental search triggered by an autocomplete suggestion ruined his life. But it's not Google's fault. It's… well, it's pretty much damn near everyone else.
Jeffrey Kantor, who was fired by Appian Corporation, sued a host of government officials, including Attorney General Eric Holder, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, CIA Director John Brennan, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Secretary of State John Kerry in Federal Court, alleging civil rights violations, disclosure of private information and retaliation…That's a lot of big names, all of which are somehow related to Jeffrey Kantor's errant search, a mistake anyone could have made. But in this era of pervasive surveillance, a mistake may be all it takes.
He also sued Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz, Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Rand Beers, Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew, EPA Administrator Regina McCarthy and U.S. Office of Personnel Management Director Katherine Archuleta.
"In October of 2009, Kantor used the search engine Google to try to find, 'How do I build a radio-controlled airplane,'" he states in his complaint. "He ran this search a couple weeks before the birthday of his son with the thought of building one together as a birthday present. After typing, 'how do I build a radio controlled', Google auto-completed his search to, 'how do I build a radio controlled bomb.'"From that point on, Kantor alleges coworkers, supervisors and government investigators all began "group stalking" him. Investigators used the good cop/bad cop approach, with the "bad cop" allegedly deploying anti-Semitic remarks frequently. In addition, his coworkers at Appian (a government contractor) would make remarks about regular people committing murder-suicides (whenever Kantor expressed anger) or how normal people just dropped dead of hypertension (whenever Kantor remained calm while being harassed).
Kantor also claims he was intensely surveilled by the government from that point forward.
He claims government officials monitored his book purchases and home computer, and implied that everything he did was being monitored…Kantor alleges this harassment continued long after he lost his job at Appian (who he's currently suing as well). The claims of stalking, harassment and surveillance fill a great deal of the 33-page filing. His suit also claims that personal information obtained through "FISA warrants" was routinely used against him (and repeated back to him) by a number of people -- the so-called "group stalking" or "gang stalking."
Kantor [also] claims the stalking spilled over into his personal life when the government secretly attached a GPS antenna to his car to track him.
Kantor also makes the rather novel claim that the statute of limitations (for incidents over 2 years old) doesn't apply because the exposure of the NSA's PRISM program (which is how the accused apparently gathered much of Kantor's private info) didn't occur until 2013.
Section 223 of the Patriot Act gives citizens two years from the time they discover that their civil rights have been violated to sue. These privacy violations occurred between 2010 and 2013. Many of the privacy violations occurred in the last two years. Other violations that Kantor alleges occurred in 2010 and early 2011, which is beyond 2 years. However, the law says that the timeline is based on when the citizen had a reasonable chance to discover the violation. Since the PRISM program was only declassified in July of 2013, these earlier violations should not be time-barred.All in all, the filing doesn't build a very credible case and comes across more as a paranoiac narrative than a coherent detailing of possible government harassment and surveillance. Here are just a few of the highlights.
One day in 2010, Kantor went to an adult web site from his home computer. The next day at work, a CRGT manager, Tony Buzanca, came up to Kantor, who was working at his computer, bent over and whispered in Kantor's ear, "people who go to pom sites are going to hell." Kantor contends that the government monitored Kantor's internet traffic, disclosed this private information to Buzanca, and had Buzanca repeat it back to Kantor for the purpose of harassment and group stalking. There was no legitimate investigative purpose to this disclosure of Kantor's private information, which must have been obtained through the Patriot Act enabled FISA warrant...
Two days before Kantor requested to be transferred, he drove to a park area of Ft Belvoir after work. He hiked on a trail and retumed to his car, which was in an isolated area (where no one normally parks). There was a van next to his car and there were three men. As Kantor returned to his car, one man said to the other, "He has been here two years 'and he won't quit. I guess he is trying to prove a point." Kantor later discovered that an antenna had been affixed to his Audi A4. The government must have been using GPS tracking to track Kantor and the stalkers were using this GPS information to follow Kantor around and stalk him…
Kantor had driven to lunch with his Appian manager, Mike Kang. Mike Kang asked Kantor what movies his wife likes. Kantor answered and politely asked Mike Kang what movies his wife likes. Kang stated that his wife likes "the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" and the "Harry Potter" movies. Kantor thought that this was strange since at the time the only version of "the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" that existed was in Swedish and Harry Potter was a kids' movie. Kantor also thought this was disturbing because those were the exact two books that he was reading, and he had borrowed these books from his local library. The second book Kantor was reading to his son…
As Kantor left work that afternoon, he was followed by an African-American man in a suit. The man sat across from Kantor on the Metro train. At the West Falls Church exit, which is one stop before the Dunn Loring exit, the man got up and started screaming at the top of his lungs at Kantor, "You respect my privacy, I'll respect your privacy, bitch!" He screamed this around five times at Kantor at the top of his lungs, and then got off the train right as the doors were about to close...
[Kantor' boss] also sent Kantor an email that said, "It's the end of the world as we know it." Kantor forwarded the email to his house. The next day he showed his father, Lawrence Kantor Jr, the email, with the title, "It's the End of the World as We Know It" and Kantor's browser history, which showed that he had emailed for the chords and lyrics to REM's "It's the end of the World as We Know It" the night before his manager sent him the email. This group stalking had occurred hundreds if not thousands of times, but this was an instance where there was digital proof and a witness on Kantor's side that had seen it in action…
Kantor in this very draft alleged that he was being wrongly investigated as a terrorist and complained overhearing his coworkers saying that his car was being searched for an AK--47. In the evening of 8/5/2013, a Vienna police officer walked into the volunteer office and said to Kantor and the three other volunteers in the room, "So this is where all the terrorists hang out. I am going to go look for an AK-47." The police officer then left. He said nothing prior to this comment and nothing after it. Kantor had never seen the police officer before or hence. This illustrates that the privacy violations and group stalking are still occurring. Is Kantor supposed to Contact the town police and complain that police officers are stalking him (which is a crime that they themselves like the FBI are supposed to be preventing, instead of engaging in)?Kantor has retained Christopher Swift of Swift & Swift, an attorney who apparently specializes in patent law, to represent him in this lawsuit against several government officials. The lawsuit seeks $13.8 million in compensatory damages and $45 million in statutory damages, as well as an injunction against the government to prevent it from further stalking him.
But that's not all!
The lawsuit also asks the judge to find that the PATRIOT Act is unconstitutional and illegal and order the FBI to turn over all calls and contacts where violations of the PATRIOT Act are alleged to the DoJ and the administration's "privacy advocate."
Now, there are a couple of ways of looking at this. Kantor may have undiagnosed mental issues which have led him to believe everyone (at several consecutive jobs) is out to get him and has access to his personal info. Certainly, the idea that the government has access to all of this info is less dubious than it was back in 2009 when the harassment allegedly began, but the rambling nature of this filing (which was apparently written with the assistance of an attorney) sounds a bit more like unhinged near-ravings than a blow-by-blow account of long-term harassment.
On the other hand, there would be no better way for the government to harass someone out of the workforce (while maintaining plausible deniability) than to create a situation so over the top and ridiculous that it instantly strips the victim of all credibility. So, there's that to consider as well.
The alleged starting point (the wrong Google search) is also not that far off either, as far as that goes. With certain keywords triggering NSA activity, it's not exactly paranoid to express a concern that a few erroneous searches could result in some sustained surveillance.
Filed Under: autocomplete, google search, paranoia


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Judge Katherine Forrest, a New York federal judge, struck down a provision in the National Defense Authorization Act that allows Americans to be indefinitely detained just for being accused of supporting terrorist groups. The ruling was in response to a lawsuit brought by journalists and scholars who were concerned that the NDAA would allow them to be indefinitely detained for speaking their minds. Judge Forrest's ruling reaffirms a ruling she issued back in May against the indefinite detention provision.
The National Defense Authorization Act has been quite controversial because it includes provisions that permit the indefinite detention of U.S. citizens. While the Obama administration and supporters of the NDAA had denied that the provisions found within the Act pertain to American citizens, analysts noted that there was no language in sections 1021 or 1022 of the Act — wherein the indefinite detention provision can be found — that exempted U.S. citizens.
Several lawmakers made efforts to combat the indefinite detention provisions.
Representative Adam Smith (D-Wash.), for example, wrote an amendment that would have required any suspected terrorists caught in the United States or its territories to be tried in civilian courts. He was joined by Congressmen Ron Paul of Texas, Justin Amash of Michigan, and John Garamendi of California.
The complaint of the lawmakers and other opponents was not simply that it violates the constitutional right to a trial but also that it doesn't work.
"In the last 10 years, we have successfully prosecuted — tried and convicted — over 400 terrorists," Smith said. "Even as we sit here today, there are over 300 terrorists in U.S. prisons."
Smith's amendment failed.
Other efforts were made as well. AddictingInfo.org writes:
Sen. Feinstein offered an amendment to make clear that only US citizens arrested overseas could be indefinitely detained by the military. That amendment failed 45-55. Senator Rand Paul, joined by five Democratic Senators (Leahy, Wyden, Merkley, Gillibrand, and Manchin), proposed an amendment to repeal the AUMF [Authorization for the Use of Military Force]. That amendment failed 30-67. And Senator Mark Udall (D-CO), joined by six Democratic Senators (Durbin, Leahy, Webb, Feinstein, Wyden, and Franken) and Senator Rand Paul (R-KY), proposed an amendment to remove the detention provisions from the NDAA. That amendment failed 38-60.
Naturally, the NDAA has faced some backlash from various civil rights groups and civilians who are concerned that the law violates a number of their constitutionally protected rights.
New York Times journalist Chris Hedges and academic Noam Chomsky brought a suit against the law, asserting it was too vague and could be used to stop journalists and other civilians from exercising their freedom of speech that is supposed to be guaranteed by the First Amendment.
Hedges and Chomsky also argued that the law was in violation of the Fifth Amendment.
According to Hedges, the indefinite detention provisions suggest "the totalitarian credo of endless war waged against enemies within 'the homeland' as well as those abroad."
Agence France-Press reports, "Hedges said he already had cut back on contacts in the Middle East, for fear that his associations could lead to him being accused of breaking the law."
Other plaintiffs on the case include Pentagon papers leaker Daniel Ellsberg and Tangerine Bolen, who runs the website Revolution Truth.
Judge Forrest agreed that the plaintiffs raised legitimate concerns about their rights and the potential for violation under the NDAA. In her ruling, she wrote that the plaintiffs in the case "present evidence that First Amendment rights have already been harmed and will be harmed by the prospect of the law being enforced."
"The public has a strong and undoubted interest in the clear preservation of the First and Fifth Amendment rights," she continued.
"First Amendment rights are guaranteed by the Constitution and cannot be legislated away," Forrest said in Wednesday's new ruling. "This Court rejects the Government's suggestion that American citizens can be placed in military detention indefinitely, for acts they could not predict might subject them to detention."
According to the federal government, the NDAA gains its authority from the 2001 Authorization to Use Military force passed by Congress following the September 11 attacks. NDAA's supporters argue that the NDAA simply reaffirms that power.
But Judge Forrest dismissed those contentions.
"The law of war has never been, and should not be, part of the domestic laws in the United States," she wrote. "The law of war is vague by necessity -- it needs flexibility. It is therefore ill-suited to domestic application and it would be ill-advised to make it a part of domestic law."
As a result, the court "permanently" halts the enforcement of the sections of the National Defense Authorization Act.
Judge Forrest's recent ruling reaffirms a ruling she issued in May, when the court had issued a preliminary injunction against the indefinite detention provisions, asking Congress to reexamine the provision.
In May, Judge Forrest wrote, "At the hearing on this motion, the government was unwilling or unable to state that these plaintiffs would not be subject to indefinite detention under section 1021. Plaintiffs are therefore at risk of detention, of losing their liberty, potentially for many years."
"An individual could run the risk of substantially supporting or directly supporting an associated force without even being aware that he or she was doing so," Forrest wrote. "In the face of what could be indeterminate military detention, due process requires more."
Whether the federal government is going to appeal Judge Forrest's ruling is unknown. Some civil rights groups are already urging the President not to appeal the decision, however.
Demand Progress, a group that backed the lawsuit against the NDAA, is launching a petition urging the Obama administration not to appeal.
Demand Progress is also calling upon the Senate to stop provisions for indefinite detention from being added to the NDAA for 2013, which is not yet up for a vote.
"It's wonderful to see Judge Forrest -- a recent Obama appointee -- buck the administration and stand up for the Constitution," Demand Progress executive director David Segal said in a statement. "Our members urge Obama to stop defending this obscene abuse of executive authority, and ask our senators to oppose indefinite detention when they vote on the NDAA later this fall."
Bolen celebrated the judge's ruling in a statement following the ruling.
"After eleven years of witnessing a radical departure from democracy and fundamental civil liberties and towards increased authoritarianism—all under the guise of the war on terror—we have a ray of hope and reason to keep the faith."
Related article: Federal Judge Permanently Blocks Indefinite Detention Under NDAA
Photo: Thinkstock


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New Player's Touchpad, Large LCD Screen, microSDHC Card Slot and Innovative "Film Strip" GUI Deliver a One-Of-A-Kind User Experience
Milpitas, Calif., August 31, 2010-SanDisk Corporation (NASDAQ: SNDK), the global leader in flash memory cards, today announced that it has set a new standard for sub-$100 portable media players. The Sansa® Fuze™+ (plus) MP3 player is available now, delivering a best-in-class combination of features, ease of use and value.
The Sansa Fuze+ portable media player, successor to the popular Sansa Fuze MP3 player, offers consumers the quality and flexibility they demand at a price that's hard to beat. The completely redesigned media player delivers a hassle-free and satisfying user experience that enables unparalleled freedom in how consumers access their favorite digital content. Music and video lovers can expand the player's storage capacity according to their needs, quickly navigate their libraries of files and enjoy high-quality audio and video playback.
"The Sansa Fuze+ is the most versatile portable media player available for under $100," said Tom Bailey, senior director, AV retail, SanDisk. "We developed an entirely new product to provide consumers with a stylish, affordable device that performs exactly as a sophisticated yet easy to use player should."
Feature-rich Form Factor
The Sansa Fuze+ portable media player offers a sleek and thin styling that fits comfortably in the palm of a hand, and its new capacitive touchpad provides the sensation of using a touch-screen without obscuring the device's viewable area. The player's bright, colorful and large 2.4" QVGA LCD screen produces sharp, vibrant images when viewing videos or photos.
Consumer-friendly "Film Strip" GUI
The player's unique GUI operates like a film strip, enabling intuitive screen navigation that creates a more natural, crisp and satisfying user experience. Left to right finger sweeps select functions such as Music, Video, Podcasts, FM Radio and Photos, while up and down sweeps or double taps on the touch-pad let users explore and select individual categories and files.
Easy Compatibility
The Sansa Fuze+ portable media player's broad audio and video CODEC pack ensures easy compatibility with most major media formats.
The Sansa Fuze+ portable media player is compatible with Windows, Mac OS and Linux operating systems. The media player is also preconfigured for seamless synchronization with Rhapsody, eMusic and Napster.
microSDHC Card Slot
The Sansa Fuze+ portable media player is fully compatible with SanDisk slotRadio™ cards or any microSD™ card loaded with music, photos or videos**. Consumers can slide these cards into the player's microSDHC™ memory card slot to instantly expand their music, photo or video libraries without consuming any onboard storage.
Additional Features
The Sansa Fuze+ media player's rechargeable battery lasts up to 24 hours of audio playback or up to five hours of video playback2. For enhanced versatility, the device also includes a recordable FM radio, gapless playback and a microphone for audio capture.
Pricing and Availability
The Sansa Fuze+ is available in red, white, black, blue and purple. The player is available now at major retailers and at sandisk.com in 4, 8 and 16 gigabyte (GB)*** capacities carrying MSRPs of $79, $89 and $119 respectively, although in-store pricing will be set by retailers.
About SanDisk
SanDisk Corporation is the global leader in flash memory cards - from research, manufacturing and product design to consumer branding and retail distribution. SanDisk's product portfolio includes flash memory cards for mobile phones, digital cameras and camcorders; digital audio/video players; USB flash drives for consumers and the enterprise; embedded memory for mobile devices; and solid state drives for computers. SanDisk is a Silicon Valley-based S&P 500 company, with more than half its sales outside the United States.
* Requires Sansa Media Converter via Sansa Updater. See kb.sandisk.com.
** Cards sold separately.
*** 1 gigabyte (GB) = 1 billion bytes.
**** slotRadio cards contain songs pre-programmed in music playlists for unlimited playback with slotRadio card compatible devices only. Visit slotRadio.com for slotRadio compatible devices. Much like radio, these songs are played in sequence and cannot be re-wound or re-arranged, yet in slotRadio, individual songs can be skipped as often as you want. Song and playlist files cannot be copied or viewed (for example on a PC). Titles feature songs from Billboard and other music charts. slotRadio content is subject to change.
1 Approximations: results will vary based on file size, resolution, compression, bit rate, content, host device, pre-loaded files and other factors. See www.sandisk.com
2 Based on continuous audio playback at 128kbps MP3; video playback at 512kbps MPEG-4; battery life and performance may vary depending upon usage and settings; battery not replaceable.
SanDisk's product and executive images can be downloaded from
SanDisk's web site/home page address:
SanDisk, the SanDisk logo and Sansa are trademarks of SanDisk Corporation, registered in the United States and other countries. Sansa Fuze and slotRadio are trademarks of SanDisk Corporation. microSD and microSDHC is a trademark of SD-3C LLC. Other brand names mentioned herein are for identification purposes only and may be the trademarks of their respective holder(s).
This press release contains certain forward-looking statements, including expectations for new product introductions, technology measurement standards, applications, features, markets, and customers that are based on our current expectations and involve numerous risks and uncertainties that may cause these forward-looking statements to be inaccurate. Risks that may cause these forward-looking statements to be inaccurate include among others: the market demand for our products may grow more slowly than our expectations or there may be a slower adoption rate for these products in new markets that we are targeting, our products may not be available at the prices, or in the geographies or capacities that we anticipate, our products may not perform as expected and the other risks detailed from time-to-time in our Securities and Exchange Commission filings and reports, including, but not limited to, our annual report on Form 10-K and our quarterly reports on Form 10-Q. We do not intend to update the information contained in this press release.
|Media Contact:
|Wendy Sept Vlieks
|SanDisk Corporation


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WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) today reacted to President Obama's announcement on guns that includes both Executive Orders and the pursuit of legislation through Congress.
"While we mourn with those who have lost loved ones, in no way should the actions of those few who act illegally impact the constitutional rights of the many," said Inhofe. "I will continue to strongly oppose any effort to undermine the Second Amendment and an individual citizen's right to keep and bear arms."
Inhofe continued, "What people need to understand about today's announcement is that it involved two very distinct actions by the president: 1) executives actions that the president will be implementing unilaterally, and 2) making recommendations to Congress for laws that it should pass. Most of the planned executive orders are common sense changes that are within the president's current powers to implement, namely:
1) Launch a national safe and responsible gun ownership campaign.
2) Provide law enforcement, first responders, and school officials with proper training for active shooter situations.
3) Maximize enforcement efforts to prevent gun violence and prosecute gun crime.
4) Launch a national dialogue led by Secretaries Sebelius and Duncan on mental health.
"I will adamantly oppose any executive order that I believe infringes upon duly enacted laws by the Congress or on our Constitutional rights. Where I do disagree with the President is on his recommendations for laws Congress should pass. We know from experience that an assault weapons ban will have no meaningful effect on gun violence, as many of the changes that are implemented by a such a ban are cosmetic in nature. Statistics demonstrate that a ban on particular weapons will not significantly decrease crime. Such a ban will, however, significantly decrease our rights guaranteed by the Constitution.
"The text of the Constitution clearly confers upon an individual the right to bear arms – and not just for the purposes of hunting as many liberals will claim. Our Founders believed that the people's right to own guns was an important check on the powers of the government and 'necessary to the security of a free State.' I couldn't agree more and I stand firm in my support of this right."


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Webcast Morgan Stanley 17th Annual Global Healthcare Conference, September 9, 2019, 10:30 am ET, NY
argenx combines the diversity of the llama immune system with antibody engineering advancing a clinical pipeline to treat patients with cancer and severe autoimmune diseases. Our platforms allow us to unlock novel and complex targets and develop antibody-based drugs designed for greater efficacy and longer duration of effect.
argenx develops product candidates with the potential to be either first-in-class against novel targets or best-in-class against known, but complex, targets in order to treat diseases with a significant unmet medical need. This is enabled by our suite of differentiated technologies. Our SIMPLE Antibody™ Platform, based on the powerful llama immune system, allows us to exploit novel and complex targets, and our three antibody engineering technologies are designed to enable us to expand the therapeutic index of our product candidates.
September 03, 2019
August 06, 2019
September 06, 2019
September 09, 2019
September 19, 2019
argenx creates antibodies with first- and best-in-class therapeutic potential. We have a deep pipeline of differentiated antibody-based therapies with one autoimmune asset in clincal phase, two potential oncology drugs in the clinic and several product leads in preclinical development.
Collaboration agreements with pharmaceutical companies enable argenx to provide our expertise to our partners and develop therapeutic antibody candidates in multiple disease areas. We are also accessing truly novel targets through partnerships with academic research groups under our Innovative Access Program.
August 01, 2019
October 24, 2019


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M.I.A. Solidifies Madonna, Nicki Minaj Collaboration
In a somewhat incomprehensible tweet, Sri Lankan spitter M.I.A. confirmed a collaboration with Nicki Minaj and the Queen of Pop herself, Madonna.
M.I.A. wrote, "summond to NYC by bitchesses > MADONNA and @NICKIMINAJ > cofffffiiiiiiieeeeeeeeee it iz a good day to get me tho trustttt b—-es" on Nov. 26.
The track is rumored to be 'Give Me All of Your Love,' though Spin reports that no reps for any of the artists involved have even confirmed that it's happening. A demo of the tune leaked earlier this month and was well-received — but Madge was not pleased that her work-in-progress reached ears before it was done. Madonna's longtime manager, Guy Oseary, tweeted, "madonna told me this morning 'my true fans wouldn't do this' … whoever is responsible for this leak, we ask that you please stop!.."
While neither M.I.A. nor Minaj have worked with Madonna yet, they've collaborated with one another. Minaj was featured on a remix of M.I.A.'s 'Teqkilla' and frequently shouts out the 'Paper Planes' MC in her own verses. (Think back to Minaj's feature on Kanye West's 'Monster' — aside from a convenient rhyme for "Tonka," who do you think the "bad b—- that came from Sri Lanka" is?)
In any case, considering the creative genius between these three divas, we're excited to hear the final product — and to see the video!


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COLUMBUS, Ohio - With casino gambling soon to start in Ohio, some state lawmakers are now setting their sights on reining in another form of gaming called sweepstakes.
Sweepstakes are all the rage in many pockets of Ohio, sprouting up in storefront locations that profess to be internet cafes but are what some lawmakers and the state's attorney general say are nothing more than unregulated slot machine parlors.
Players enter the locations and buy something of value, like a prepaid internet card, and then use the card to surf the internet or play slot machine style games on computer terminals. It's legal and has no rules attached.
Supporters of the facilities say it is no different from playing promotional sweepstakes games like Monopoly at McDonald's or looking under the cap of a bottle of Sprite to see if you have won free food or cash. The idea is you pay for a good and then use it for a chance to win a prize. But one lawmaker said it reeks of a rip-off.
"Some are running these things like legitimate internet caf s but others are not selling any item of value and their only purpose is having you come in and play and people think they are really playing slot machines," said state Sen. Joe Schiavoni, who last week introduced Senate Bill 317, which would license and regulate the sweepstakes gaming industry.
Schiavoni said the winners often are pre-determined, so people think they are playing a game but actually may have no shot at winning even before they sit down to play. He wants that aspect of sweepstakes regulated.
"There are a ton of them in the Mahoning Valley where I live and I don't know very many people who go in there to buy the phone card or the coffee mug," Schiavoni, a Youngstown Democrat, said. "They go in there to play the games, and most of them have no chance."
Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine, as he did one year ago with House Bill 195 -- a similar bill that has stalled in the Statehouse -- is supporting Schiavoni's bill. DeWine, a Republican, called the bill "sensible."
"By imposing common sense regulations we can ensure that consumers are not taken advantage of and that the law is consistent statewide," DeWine said in a statement from Schiavoni's office.
But it appears the attorney general is also concerned that these internet cafes could be havens for criminal activity, according to a March 26, 2012 memo from his office to his field staff obtained by The Plain Dealer.
"There is some concern that these operations are used as money laundering businesses," DeWine wrote in the memo.
The attorney general's office estimates that there are about 280 internet cafes in Ohio, most of them in the northern half of the state. Between March 19 and 26, DeWine sent nine staffers to visit 103 of these locations to make unannounced and anonymous observations.
They found most of the sites resembled casinos, with free snacks, incentives for new players, cigarette smoking, alcohol in a few places, ATMs and daily hours, with 10 to 135 sweepstakes games in one location and a heavy clientele of elderly women.
Schiavoni, the Senate's assistant minority leader, said he is not trying to close internet cafes but wants to be sure that they are not taking advantage of customers who might have no chance at winning.
"The purpose of the bill is not to put them out of business, it's just to regulate them," he said. "I didn't put any caps on cash prizes or a cap on how many of these places there can be in one area. I'm not the police -- I'm not trying to shut them down."
HB 195 would cap the number of internet cafes by county. But that bill, sponsored by two Republicans, stalled in a House committee in April 2011 soon after it was introduced despite the high-profile support of DeWine and state lottery officials.
While Schiavoni says he is not trying to close the cafes, his bill has some strict provisions that could make it difficult for some of them to operate. The bill would require the Ohio Casino Control Commission to be the regulating body. The bill would also:
• Require each caf owner to obtain an operator's license costing at least $100,000 after paying an application fee of at least $25,000;
• Require operators to purchase their gaming equipment from a vendor who also must be specially licensed at a cost of $15,000, plus a $10,000 application fee;
• Require each machine to be tested and licensed and require caf owners to post the odds for winning the games for customers;
• Bar the cafes from being located within 500 feet of a casino or racino, 1,000 feet of a school, or within a residentially zoned area;
• Prohibit alcohol sales and consumption on the premises;
• Allow local governments to vote to bar the cafes within their municipalities.
David George, president of the Fair Gaming Coalition of Ohio, said the alcohol prohibition would be yet another blow to the bar and tavern industry.
"The hospitality industry, your bars and taverns and bowling alleys, will already take a 35 to 40 percent hit when the casinos and racinos start opening this year," George said.
"Sen. Schiavoni's bill doesn't allow for any sweepstakes games at our locations," said George, whose clients were shut out of a chance to have slot machines once it became clear that the state would have casinos. "All we've wanted from Columbus is a level playing field."


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A few quotes I read today
Saturday, March 17, 2012
"There is a fountain of youth: it is your mind, your talents, the creativity you bring to your life and the lives of people you love. When you learn to tap this source, you will truly have defeated age." - Sophia Loren
"Beauty, truth, friendship, love, creation - these are the great values of life. We can't prove them, or explain then, yet they are the most stable things in our lives." - Jesse Herman Holmes
These are both very true, and are ringing true for me right now!


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CPUtopia specializes in ODM/OEM manufacturing and
distributing of high quality replacement power supplies, hard drive, cables, LCD
Mounts and computer parts. Power supplies include ATX, TFX, MICRO ATX, PS3 &
FLEX-ATX, Power Supplies will support Dell, E-machines, HP, Shuttle, Compaq,
IBM. Gateway, DELL and other OEM PCs. Our LCD monitor stands include office
solutions for Single, Dual, Triple, Quad, and Hex LCD monitors stands and
mounts. We also carry a wide assortment of cables and adapters.


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Save The Date - Woodgrain Letterpress
We do a ton of custom wedding letterpress work with designers around the country. These were hot of the press today and designed by the groom-to-be, Nick Brue. We went all out on this card with the production details: Brown Side: Clear Varnish for woodgrain print and custom silver/gold metallic for type.
White Side: Blind letterpress (no ink) for the pattern and custom match ink to brown stock
Then we glue the sheets together back to back in register. And yes, we love to print extremely tiny type.


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| Aspects of Leadership Applicable to This Program
thoughtLEADERS can provide you assistance on your most difficult problems. Whether it's the creation of a strategic plan, refinement of your communications or assistance with leadership issues, we can help. Our instructors quickly help you get to the heart of the issue and make practical, sound, and applicable recommendations on how you can resolve your problems. We focus our consulting and coaching engagements in three primary areas:
Strategic Project Consulting: Our instructors work with you to solve your most difficult problems and help you communicate your recommendations in a clear and compelling way.
Executive Coaching: We work one on one with your leaders to help them improve their skills and build their capabilities. We don't take a cookie cutter or framework-laden approach to coaching. Instead, we serve as an executive peer who can understand your business problems and offer guidance and advice from a real-world perspective. We don't tell you the things you want to hear – we tell you the things you need to hear.
Social Medial Consulting: Social media is all the rage. The big question is how do you drive actual business results by using it? We will spend time with your team exploring the different platforms and players in social media and help you better understand which of those tools and approaches are right for your business.
Please contact us to discuss the problem or opportunity you are facing and we will respond with a customized proposal on how we can assist you. Additionally, we provide post-training course coaching support on request.
What are our clients saying about our services?
"thoughtLEADERS went beyond the originally defined scope and came in under budget. They performed a strategic review, made over 20 specific introductions to key C-level executives, and mapped future strategic inflection points for our company. They performed this work with little direction/oversight but stayed in constant communication with us. Phenomenal results, great insights, and valuable relationships."
– Founder/Co-CEO, Freedom Financial Network, LLC


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WASHINGTON — In the past few weeks, more than 1,200 internal State Department cables have been made public by WikiLeaks and received worldwide attention, including regular front-page coverage in The New York Times and countless other news organizations, including MSNBC.
But the Obama administration's attempt to stop people from reading them continues unabated, creating mounting confusion and head-shaking among bewildered federal employees.
In one example, the Department of Homeland Security sent out a strongly worded memo to all employees and contractors telling them that not only may they not "download or attempt to download" any of the classified WikiLeaks memos onto their computers, they also may not "discuss the content" of such "potentially classified" documents "with persons who would not otherwise be authorized access," according to a copy of a Dec. 3 memo from the department's Office of Chief Information Officer.
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That follows similar action by other federal agencies: The Library of Congress (where Congressional Research Service analysts work) and NASA, for example, have actually blocked access to the WikiLeaks websites from employee computers.
"This is driving secrecy policy over a cliff," said Steven Aftergood, a national security specialist with the Federation of American Scientists and the author of the widely read Secrecy News blog who wrote about the issue on Friday. "It means that government employees are going to be the least informed people on the planet."
As an example, Aftergood cites an e-mail he got from one DHS employee who had just received the department's latest missive from Donna Roy, an official in the department's information office. Strictly read, it appears to suggest that department employees and contractors could be guilty of a security violation if they access WikiLeaks cables from their personal computers, the employee noted.
"So, my grandmother would be allowed to access the cables, but not me. This seems ludicrous," the DHS official wrote Aftergood. Aftergood shared the e-mail, with the name of the employee deleted, as well as the Dec. 3 memo from Roy.
"As someone who has spent many years with the USG [U.S. government] dealing with senior officials of foreign governments, it seems to me that the problem faced by CRS [Congressional Research Service] researchers … is going to be widespread across our government if we follow this policy. … I think more damage will be done by keeping the federal workforce largely in the dark about what other interested parties worldwide are going to be reading and analyzing."
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A DHS official, who asked not to be identified by name, acknowledged the department's memo may have been worded "imprecisely." The purpose was to prohibit employees from downloading WikiLeaks cables on their government computers, not necessarily their personal computers at home. (A similar memo from the Defense Department's Threat Reduction Agency banning its employees and contractors from downloading Wiki memos does apply explicitly to "employees' or contractors' personally owned computers," however.)
Document: Read memo from Defense Department here (PDF file)
In any case, the DHS official said, the larger point was to remind all federal workers, as the White House OMB recently did, that classified State Department cables may not be shared with the public just because WikiLeaks or a news organization has published them.
"If something is not declassified officially, then it remains classified," the official said.
© 2013 NBCNews.com Reprints


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Canadian Svein Tuft (pictured) and Brazilian Murilo Fischer led the Garmin-Transitions team efforts at various National Championships around the world last weekend.
Both Tuft and Fischer took home their respective national titles, while in Europe Martijn Maaskant finished sixth in the Dutch National Road Race Championship and Johan Van Summeren was eighth in the Belgian National Road Race Championship.
Tuft continued his TT dominance in Canada, riding the all-new Felt DA time trial bike to his sixth National Title. Tuft crushed the competition on the 40km course near Edmonton, beating the second-place finisher by nearly two minutes.
Fischer, in his first year riding with the Garmin-Transitions team, earned another National Champion's jersey for the team with his road race win in Brazil.
Next up for the Garmin-Transitions team is the Tour de France, which starts in Amsterdam on Saturday, July 3.