The United States Food and Drug Administration has shut down a drug lab operated by the National Institute of Health in order produce drug samples used in clinical trials. The National Institute of Health responded to the shut down by announcing a suspension of operation for their Pharmaceutical Development Section and revealed that the contaminated product which the Food and Drug Administration ordered the shut down over was a common injectable solution of albumin used for facilitating the delivery of pharmacologically active chemicals that had become contaminated by fungus. At this point it is clear that the endemic decay affecting the apparatus of the United States Government is not restricted to its facilities for deploying violence but has indeed spread mycelium even into operations tasked with promoting the health and well being of the public.
Category Archives: News
Exodus from Wall Street: HSBC lays off 50,000 employees
Reports are coming in that HSBC, the third largest bank in the world and one of the most profitable, in a marked attempt to tighten its belt in the face of regulatory and economic pressures, is preparing to hand out pink slips to some 50,000 of its employees from its less profitable divisions.
With a particular focus on Britain, Brazil, the United States, Turkey, and Mexico, CEO Stuart Gulliver plans to cut $290 billion in assets on a risk adjusted basis by 2017. The cuts will be sharp and deep, with a full one-sixth of UK staff, around 7,000 – 8,000 jobs, headed for the chopping block. Redundant staff and other non-productive assets from Europe and the Americas will largely be redeployed as the firm continues to shift its focus towards Asia in general and China in particular.
It would appear that the current state of the world, what with the digitisation of finance as heralded by Bitcoin and the excessive regulatory burden and generally grim economic prospects of western socialist democracies, is even leading HSBC to consider moving its headquarters back to Honk Kong, where the Hong Kong Shanghai Banking Corporation was originally established in 1865 by Sir Thomas Sutherland.
Given that Hong Kong is taking a considerably lighter and hands-off approach to Bitcoin regulation, whereas Britain and others are doing everything in their power to stave off the inevitable, the former British colony would seem to be a safer and saner home for the bank. For now.
Ministry of Games: Eulora Enters Public Beta
Business at a craft table with other players and NPCs.
On June 1st in the monthly report of the S.MG MPEx asset (also traded as pass-through on Havelock Investments), source code for Eulora client were published. Several days later also Windows binaries for the Eulora client followed. Work on releases for other platforms and on a game manual is ongoing. Continue reading
3 Years Prison For Backpack Full of Cash in Winnipeg
Erwin Speckert was sentenced to three years of prison after a money laundering conviction derived from his arrest while boarding a Greyhound bus with $1.3 million Canadian Dollars in his backpack. Speckert plead guilty back in October and the sentence was arranged this week through agreement between the prosecution and defense lawyers. Speckert had requested his security screening be done in private due to the sensitivity and value of his backpack's contents and after he was assured by the private security officer who screened him that taking that much cash on him was kosher, the private security officer phoned police who assert Speckert consented to a second search conducted by them. Police further assert that Speckert was determined by their investigation to be working as a courier for "illegal gaming" operators. Speckert throughout his time consenting to security searches at the bus station asserted he intended to purchase real estate and was conveying cash in this manner as he reasonably did not trust banks.
NYDFS Announces Final Bitlicense Rules
As the days wind down before Benjamin Lawsky leaves the New York Department of Financial Services for private practice, Lawsky unveiled the final version of his New York Bitlicense proposal at an event in Washington DC. The full text of the document is available below: Continue reading
Dotcom Scores Victory Against Forfeiture in New Zealand Court
New Zealand court Justice Rebecca Ellis has issued a ruling which strikes a serious blow against the efforts of the United States to seize the assets of entrepreneur Kim Dotcom. After March's United States court ruling which sought to seize Dotcom's assets through a legal construction known as the "fugitive disentitlement doctrine" and efforts by New Zealand's Commissioner of Police to assign Dotcom's property to the Crown, Dotcom and his attorney Bram Van der Kolk sought relief through judicial review of the actions in New Zealand courts. Continue reading
Elonis Wins At US Supreme Court
In the free speech case Elonis vs. United State which was featured earlier on Qntra, the justices of the United States Supreme Court decided in favor of Elonis. Elonis challenged his conviction under Federal statutes prohibiting the interstate transmission of threats for his having authored rap lyrics. The justices vacated the conviction and sent the case back to a lower court to be reconsidered under a stricter standard for prosecution which would require demonstrating Elonis had a criminally culpable state of mind, or Mens Rea when disseminating his lyrics. While the decision was not a complete victory for Elonis the idea that offense is something imposed by the recipient of an utterance, and if utterances are to ever be criminal Mens Rea must be established is almost a positive development in the bleak wasteland of the United States legal system.
Some Other People Sentenced This Month in US Courts
A few hours ago Ross Ulbricht was sentenced to a life of incarceration for convictions related to operating a website. Let's look at some other sentences handed down by American courts recently:
Terry and Victoria Smith (archived) were sentenced to seven years in prison by a St Charles County, Missouri court for keeping their six year old child with autism in an excrement filled cage. The judge in the case, Ted house also imposed a fine of five hundred dollars on each parent. Back in 2010 police, paramedics, and a case worker visited the Smith's home after receiving a tip through a child abuse hotline and found the Smith's autistic son locked in the cage. The seven year sentence is the maximum that could be imposed in this case. Continue reading
Gavin Threatens to Quit Bitcoin Development and Join Hearn's Fork
Today on the Sourceforge hosted Bitcoin-development mailing list Gavin Andresen has threatened to leave his present group of Bitcoin software developers over their objections to his demands for a rapid hardfork of the Bitcoin network. In the event his demands are not met Gavin plans to join Mike Hearn's Bitcoin-XT project which is a fork of the Bitcoin client where Hearn implements patches that Gavin's current affiliated developers find too risky to implement in any mainline Bitcoin client. If Gavin defects to Bitcoin-XT he plans to work with Hearn to lobby merchants, miners, and businesses to move to Bitcoin-XT. Previously Mike Hearn was responsible for the March 2013 Bitcoin network crisis. The full text of Gavin's message is mirrored below for posterity. Continue reading
Former US House Speaker Indicted on Attempting to Evade Financial Surveillance
Dennis Hastert, Speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 1999 through 2007, was indicted today on charges of structuring bank withdrawals to avoid mandatory bank reporting and lying about the purpose of the withdrawals to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Hastert is alleged to have made the cash withdrawals to "compensate for and conceal" some past transgression against an unnamed individual which ended with Hastert and the other party reaching a privately negotiated settlement. Prior to his career in politics Hastert was a teacher at Yorkville High School in Illinois where he additionally coached wrestling and football. Continue reading