Russian Oligarch Tries to Cash In on Obama's Crony Capitalism | National Legal and Policy Center

The passion and scrutiny exercised by the two senators over the loans to Severstal because of suspicions of “crony capitalism” was admirable, especially since it helped cause the loan to fall through. But giveaways and backing from government is nearly an everyday occurrence – at the local, state and federal level – and nary a word is spoken. Taxpayers would be a lot better off it politicians got indignant more often than just when Russian billionaires are involved.

All-time record snowfall hits Midland - Mywesttexas.com: Top Stories

On Monday, the Tall City set a new record of 0.69 inches of rain for Dec. 9 and received an all-time record of 10.6 inches of snow, as of 10:05 p.m., according to the National Weather Service.

Since Dec. 1, Midland has received a total of 19.3 inches during the course of three heavy snow events. The last record of snowfall during the season was set in 1946-47 with a total of 13.9 inches, officials said.  [Hat tip:  D. Bishop]

Another Huhne Fiasco? Smart Meters Screw-Up Exposes Security Threat

White-hat hackers have exposed the privacy shortcomings of smart meter technology.

The researchers said German firm Discovergy apparently allowed information gathered by its smart meters to travel over an insecure link to its servers. The information – which could be intercepted – apparently could be interpreted to reveal not only whether or not users happened to be at home and consuming electricity at the time but even what film they were watching, based on the fingerprint of power usage. The many surprising secrets revealed by some smart meter set-ups were revealed during a presentation by researchers Dario Carluccio and Stephan Brinkhaus at the 28th Chaos Computing Congress (28c3) hacker conference in Berlin late last month.

Global Warming May Have Delayed the Next Ice Age | 80beats | Discover Magazine

the long, increasingly hot trip probably isn’t going to be pretty.