DEA transformed into a global intelligence organization

WASHINGTON (NY Times) - The Drug Enforcement Administration has been transformed into a global intelligence organization with a reach that extends far beyond narcotics, and an eavesdropping operation so expansive it has to fend off foreign politicians who want to use it against their political enemies, according to secret diplomatic cables.

In far greater detail than previously seen, the cables, from the cache obtained by WikiLeaks and made available to some news organizations, offer glimpses of drug agents balancing diplomacy and law enforcement in places where it can be hard to tell the politicians from the traffickers, and where drug rings are themselves mini-states whose wealth and violence permit them to run roughshod over struggling governments.

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Overestimate fueled California's landmark diesel law

(SF Chronicle) - California grossly miscalculated pollution levels in a scientific analysis used to toughen the state's clean-air standards, and scientists have spent the past several months revising data and planning a significant weakening of the landmark regulation, The Chronicle has found.

The pollution estimate in question was too high - by 340 percent, according to the California Air Resources Board, the state agency charged with researching and adopting air quality standards. The estimate was a key part in the creation of a regulation adopted by the Air Resources Board in 2007, a rule that forces businesses to cut diesel emissions by replacing or making costly upgrades to heavy-duty, diesel-fueled off-road vehicles used in construction and other industries.

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Federal workers make twice as much as workers in private sector

(USA Today) - At a time when workers' pay and benefits have stagnated, federal employees' average compensation has grown to more than double what private sector workers earn, a USA TODAY analysis finds.

Federal workers have been awarded bigger average pay and benefit increases than private employees for nine years in a row. The compensation gap between federal and private workers has doubled in the past decade.

Federal civil servants earned average pay and benefits of $123,049 in 2009 while private workers made $61,051 in total compensation, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. The data are the latest available.

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Who's to blame for the oil spill?

The federal government, of course. The incompetent fools in Washington provided erroneous information regarding the threat of a potential spill, they wouldn't allow BP to drill in shallower water where a spill could be better contained, and they won't allow local communities to do what is necessary to do to clean up or minimize damage from the spill.



The real reason the feds are capitalizing on this tragedy is the same reason they capitalize on every tragedy: more money and more power. Look for Obama to try to use this to push through carbon taxes, cap and trade, and more government control over the oil industry.

Obama internet 'kill switch' proposed

(The Age) - U.S. President Barack Obama would be granted powers to seize control of and even shut down the internet under a new bill that describes the global internet as a U.S. "national asset".

Local lobby groups and academics have rounded on the plan, saying that, rather than combat terrorists, it would actually do them "the biggest favour ever" by terrorising the rest of the world, which is now heavily reliant on cyberspace.

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U.S. science body urges action on climate

WASHINGTON (NY Times) - In its most comprehensive study so far, the nation's leading scientific body declared on Wednesday that climate change is a reality and is driven mostly by human activity, chiefly the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation.

The group, the National Research Council, an arm of the National Academy of Sciences, issued three reports describing the case for a harmful human influence on the global climate as overwhelming and arguing for strong immediate action to limit emissions of climate-altering gases in the United States and around the world — including the creation of a carbon pricing system.

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Poll: 35 percent of Republicans back 'bailout fund'

(Washington Post blog) - Thirty-five percent of Republicans support "requiring large banks and other financial companies to put money into a fund that would cover the cost of taking over and breaking up any large financial company that fails and threatens the broader economy," the part of the bill labeled the "bailout fund" by Republican leaders. Twenty-seven percent support "having the federal government regulate the complex financial instruments known as derivatives." Forty-four percent support "increasing federal oversight of the way banks and other financial companies make consumer loans, such as mortgages and auto loans, and issue credit cards." And a majority, 53 percent, support "stricter federal regulations on the way Wall Street firms conduct their business."

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