Facebook and Divorce

Facebook Divorce Rate In 2011: New Statistics
By: Peter Chubb

Having already discussed “Social Networking Etiquette“, we thought we would take a look at another issue, and that is the Facebook divorce rate in 2011. These new statistics seem a little worrying, and for good reason, as divorces have been on the rise not only because of Facebook but other social websites as well.

The reason for this is due to the fact that people are now able to use websites like Facebook to cheat on their partners, many of us have seen for ourselves how people behave on Facebook, this is just another one of those behaviors. Do not think that this gives you the green light to go out and have an affair, as social networking websites are also being used to catch you out.

According to one report on TheTechJournal, more than 20 percent of an online divorce lawyers case list was because of an affair that started on Facebook. However, not all of them involve sexual relations, “The most common reason seemed to be people having inappropriate sexual chats with people they were not supposed to.”

Having said that, this is still no excuse and no chats of a sexual or flirty nature should happen if you are in a committed relationship – unless you have an understanding of-course.

There is even a case where one woman learned that her husband was divorcing her via Facebook, as he was seeing someone who he met on The Social Network. One thing we do know looking at the latest statistics, Facebook and MySpace pages will now be introduced more and more over the coming months in divorce courts, so you had best watch out.

Have you ever caught your partner out on Facebook or MySpace?

 

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• FYI - Facebook being cited in divorce cases. (jwitness.wordpress.com)
• Facebook and divorce (geneveith.com)
• The Facebook Divorce (neatorama.com)
• Facebook a top cause of relationship trouble, say US lawyers (guardian.co.uk)
• is facebook contributing to divorce stats? (astramatch.com)

Politics, Facebook and Your Privacy

Why Facebook’s Political Moves

Should Terrify Us All

by JD Rucker

Power is often something that is earned. It’s also something that can be taken by making the right moves. As Facebook continues to expand its reach in Washington, alarm bells should be ringing in every one of our skeptical minds.

For the most part, it will go unnoticed. It’s like the perfect bomb – two components that are benign by themselves but deadly when mixed. While most would say that neither Washington nor Facebook are benign, it should be noted that the potential of combining the entities is more than just dangerous. It will prove to be deadly.

There will be those who say that everything I’m about to write is paranoid gibberish or unfounded analysis. Believe what you will, but don’t be foolish or blind. This is a potentially dangerous situation. Here’s why:

The Unholy Alliance

The moves that Facebook plans on making go well beyond getting lobbyists to protect their interests. Currently, Facebook’s only public-facing interest is control over basic Internet functions – pageviews, eCommerce, social influence, and access. Facebook is already exceptional at controlling pageviews. Their eCommerce department is working feverishly (albeit stealthily) to embed Facebook as a centralized middleman for buying and selling through the Internet. Their social influence is unquestioned and nearly unchallenged. Access – new websites are born every day that encourage or require logging in through Facebook.

Rather than hiring lobbyists, Facebook is hiring Washington insiders. They already have a COO in the form of former Clinton administration official Sheryl Sandberg, a General Counsel in the form of former Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia clerk Ted Ullyot, and they are eying President Obama’s former White House press secretary Robert Gibbs for their communications team.

This is just the beginning.

The only reason a company would pay the premium to get politicos on board is to have the influence and clout to make serious moves in Washington. That’s it. There’s no other valid reason. With 3, it could be a coincidence. We expect to see more down the line.

What moves could they possibly be considering? What do they want, and what would they have to offer?

This is where the speculation goes off the reservation. Facebook is a longshot candidate to be involved with the proposed National Internet ID. That longshot status could change quickly if they are able to convince the administration that they possess both the skills and the manpower to make it a reality in a way that people will be willing to embrace.

There are other things they want in Washington, but this is the big prize. Because the concept of a National Internet ID is to protect people while online and encourage eCommerce, Facebook is poised to be a recipient of some form of benefits once it’s in place. They could help administer it at the high end. They could be an integrated partner on the low end. Either way, they win.

As far as what they have to offer, it’s pretty clear. They have the data. They have the users. They have the attention of the nation and the world in a way that no other website has truly held. Even Google is useful but not as integrated into our day-to-day lives the way Facebook is.

They will never admit it, but it’s the biggest thing they have that the government wants. Are you scared yet?

Why It Should Scare You

The National Internet ID as a concept should terrify you already, but Facebook would double the danger. You see, Facebook as a company does not have a track-record of having our best interests in mind or of protecting our information in any way, shape or form. Their political aspirations go beyond Farmville and poking. They are making a play for real power.

The US government does not have a strong track-record of wielding their power in ways that the people want. Sure, this is a democracy, but did we vote to be groped? Did we tell the government it was okay to wiretap citizens without a court order? The questionable decisions go on and on. Add Facebook’s trillions of bits of data about us, our friends, and our activities to the mix and suddenly you have a recipe for 1984.

Big Brother won’t just be watching if Facebook gets more ears in Washington.

Related articles

• Facebook preparing for a lobbying push (boston.com)
• Facebook Wants to Add Friends in Washington (nytimes.com)
• Facebook Has A Secret Weapon To Keep Washington Off Its Back (businessinsider.com)
• Facebook Treading the Power Corridor? (devicemag.com)
• Social Media: Facebook Cozies Up to Obama and Congress (time.com)
• Unholy Alliance (powerlineblog.com)
• Facebook and GS tie-up may be unholy disaster (Part 2) (fitforrandomness.wordpress.com)
• Facebook Questions Launches as Public Beta (magnaefamae.wordpress.com)

Odyssey Dawn Coalition Partners

Coalition Partners Assume  More Responsibility in Libya By Lisa Daniel American Forces Press Service WASHINGTON – Coalition task force operations in Libya continue to go well, and partner nations are picking up more of the workload, the chief of staff of Joint  Task Force Odyssey Dawn told reporters. “Our efforts have been going well,” Navy Rear Adm. Gerard P. Hueber told Pentagon reporters by telephone from the USS Whitney in the Mediterranean Sea. “This is a multiphased operation. Our coalition partners are assuming more and more responsibility.” The 13-member coalition has achieved its objective to set up a no-fly zone over Libya, and no Libyan aircraft has flown in the past 24 hours, Hueber said. Libyan forces have not used surface-to-air missiles in four days, he added. Sortie airstrikes have rendered Libya’s air defense “severely degraded or destroyed, ” the admiral said. Hueber said the coalition’s mission is clear, as mandated in U.N. Security Council Resolution 1973: to protect civilians from attacks or the threat of attacks, to establisha no-fly zone to protect civilians and prevent mass atrocities, and to enforce the trade embargo against Libya. To end the mission, Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi must stop Libyan forces from firing on civilians, he said. But forces loyal to Gadhafi continue to advance on Benghazi on Libya’s northeastern coast, and are not pulling back from Misurata on the northwestern coast and Ajdabiya, just south of Benghazi, Hueber said. Widespread reports indicate Gadhafi’s forces continue to fire on civilians and civilian sites in those cities, he added. “He must stop advancing on those cities,” Hueber said. “Clearly, Gadhafi’s forces have not met those requirements and are in clear violation” of the U.N. Security Council resolution. “We are pressuring Gadhafi’s forces that are attacking those civilian populations,” he added. The coalition started out small, but quickly established the no-fly zone, obtained maritime superiority, put the embargo in place, interdicted ground forces, suppressed enemy air defenses and put humanitarian operations in place, Hueber said. “This is a fully integrated coalition operation,” he said. “Coalition ships, aircraft and staff are focused on the single mission of enforcing [Resolution] 1973.” The coalition has “accomplished quite a lot together,” the admiral said, “and will continue to work together” until the resolution’s objectives are met.

Biographies: Navy Rear Adm. Gerard P. Hueber Related Sites: Special Report: Operation Odyssey Dawn Video: Hueber Briefing

Related articles

• Coalition targeting means to attack Libyan rebels - USA Today (news.google.com)
• Qadhafi forces continue to attack civilians: US Admiral - The Hindu (news.google.com)
• Despite grounded air force, Libyan troops still on attack (cnn.com)
• Video: Door open to military coordination with rebels? (hotair.com)
• Gadhafi troops attack main hospital in Misrata (ac360.blogs.cnn.com)
• NATO forces destroy Libyan ship (cbc.ca)

Who Sold Libya Its Supermissiles?

The Libyan Lethal Weapon

Who Sold Libya Its Supermissiles?

By Adam Rawnsley

The U.S. government calls it the “one of the most lethal” weapons of its kind — an advanced, portable missile, designed to knock planes out of the sky. A variant of it just showed up in Moammar Gadhafi’s army and nobody seems to know how exactly it got there. But diplomatic cables, unearthed by WikiLeaks, suggest one potential culprit: the Chavez regime in Venezuela.

Aviation Week’s eagle-eyed reporter David Fulghum spotted a Russian SA-24 Grinch surface-to-air missile mounted on a Libyan army truck in recent cable news footage. And that’s a cause for concern: The SA-24 is more accurate, longer-flying, and more lethal than than earlier models of surface-to-air missiles. It also has a dual-band infrared seeker and is more difficult to jam than older systems.

The missiles “reportedly have counter-countermeasures that may be difficult for planes with just flares to counter,” Matthew Schroeder, director of the Federation of American Scientists’ Arms Sales Monitoring Project, tells Danger Room. ”Overall it’s just a much more capable system.”

Aviation Week reports that the majority of coalition combat air patrols are conducted at 20,000 feet or higher, putting them above the roughly 11,000-foot range of the SA-24. But as Fulghum notes, this still leaves plenty of humanitarian, evacuation or other lower-flying operations at risk.

So how did the missile get there and where did it come from? Thanks to a shaky system of international arms-sale monitoring, its hard to say.

Russia has shown a willingness to sell Libya other sophisticated air defense systems in the recent past. In 2010, Moscow announced a deal to sell Tripoli a $1.8 billion package of arms that included two batteries of its big, bleeding-edge S-300 air defense missiles, in addition to Sukhoi fighter jets and T-90 tanks. But the deal was never finalized.

Schroeder says he can’t find any other Russian missile sales in the last seven years. But countries aren’t always keen to be candid about their arms deals.

“Many countries do not report — or report inconsistently — to the UN Arms Register, and even those that do report often withhold key information, such as the model of the weapons that are transferred,” Schroeder says.

Russia has sold Venezuela a shoulder-fired version of the SA-24, which is a bit different from the truck-mounted model found by Aviation Week. In classified cables released by WikiLeaks, American diplomats expressed alarm at Russia’s deal with Venezuela, writing that the missile, “considered one of the most lethal portable air defense systems ever made,” was at risk of falling into other hands.

Faced with evidence that Russia’s sales of ammunition to Venezuela had ended up in the hands of Colombian terrorists, Russian diplomats tried to reassure their American counterparts that they had their arms sales under control.

“Russian law provides specific measures to prevent illegal transfers to third parties,” one cable quoted a Russian diplomat as saying. I’m sure coalition pilots are completely reassured.

Gadhafi is reportedly close to Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, who has blasted the coalition attacks on Libya.

The two are so close that, at one point last month, many speculated the Libyan dictator had sought exile in Venezuela. Perhaps there was a different arrangement.

Related articles

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Could YOU get away with this at work????

Hard at work while hardly working.

House Minority Leader Lawrence F. Cafero, Jr., R-Norwalk, pictured standing, far right, speaks while colleagues Rep. Barbara Lambert, D-Milford and Rep. Jack F. Hennessy, D-Bridgeport, play solitaire Monday night as the House convened to vote on a new budget. (AP)

The guy sitting in the row in front of these two....he's on Facebook, and the guy behind Hennessy is checking out the baseball scores.

These are the folks that couldn't get the budget out by Oct. 1, 2010 and are about to control your health care, cap and trade, and the list goes on and on….As of March 2011 they STILL haven't passed a budget.

THINK ABOUT IT,...

Should we buy them larger screen computers or a ticket home, permanently?

This is one of their 3-Day Work Weeks that we all pay for (salary is about $179,000 per year).

Do you know what your Congressman and Senators did for our country today?

Remember this during the 2012 elections.

Operation: Odyssey Dawn - Target: Libya

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

The no-BS info on Japan's disastrous nuclear operators

TOKYO ELECTRIC TO BUILD US NUCLEAR PLANTS

by Greg Palast
New York - March 14, 2011

I need to speak to you, not as a reporter, but in my former capacity as lead investigator in several government nuclear plant fraud and racketeering investigations.

I don't know the law in Japan, so I can't tell you if Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) can plead insanity to the homicides about to happen.

But what will Obama plead? The Administration, just months ago, asked Congress to provide a $4 billion loan guarantee for two new nuclear reactors to be built and operated on the Gulf Coast of Texas — by Tokyo Electric Power and local partners. As if the Gulf hasn't suffered enough.

Here are the facts about Tokyo Electric and the industry you haven't heard on CNN: The failure of emergency systems at Japan's nuclear plants comes as no surprise to those of us who have worked in the field. Nuclear plants the world over must be certified for what is called "SQ" or "Seismic Qualification." That is, the owners swear that all components are designed for the maximum conceivable shaking event, be it from an earthquake or an exploding Christmas card from Al Qaeda.

The most inexpensive way to meet your SQ is to lie. The industry does it all the time. The government team I worked with caught them once, in 1988, at the Shoreham plant in New York. Correcting the SQ problem at Shoreham would have cost a cool billion, so engineers were told to change the tests from 'failed' to 'passed.'

The company that put in the false safety report? Stone & Webster, now the nuclear unit of Shaw Construction which will work with Tokyo Electric to build the Texas plant, Lord help us.

There's more.

Last night I heard CNN reporters repeat the official line that the tsunami disabled the pumps needed to cool the reactors, implying that water unexpectedly got into the diesel generators that run the pumps.

These safety back-up systems are the 'EDGs' in nuke-speak: Emergency Diesel Generators. That they didn't work in an emergency is like a fire department telling us they couldn't save a building because "it was on fire."

What dim bulbs designed this system? One of the reactors dancing with death at Fukushima Station 1 was built by Toshiba. Toshiba was also an architect of the emergency diesel system.

Now be afraid. Obama's $4 billion bail-out-in-the-making is called the South Texas Project. It's been sold as a red-white-and-blue way to make power domestically with a reactor from Westinghouse, a great American brand. However, the reactor will be made substantially in Japan by the company that bought the US brand name, Westinghouse — Toshiba.

I once had a Toshiba computer. I only had to send it in once for warranty work. However, it's kind of hard to mail back a reactor with the warranty slip inside the box if the fuel rods are melted and sinking halfway to the earth's core.

TEPCO and Toshiba don't know what my son learned in 8th grade science class: tsunamis follow Pacific Rim earthquakes. So these companies are real stupid, eh? Maybe. More likely is that the diesels and related systems wouldn't have worked on a fine, dry afternoon.

Back in the day, when we checked the emergency back-up diesels in America, a mind-blowing number flunked. At the New York nuke, for example, the builders swore under oath that their three diesel engines were ready for an emergency. They'd been tested. The tests were faked, the diesels run for just a short time at low speed. When the diesels were put through a real test under emergency-like conditions, the crankshaft on the first one snapped in about an hour, then the second and third. We nicknamed the diesels, "Snap, Crackle and Pop."

(Note: Moments after I wrote that sentence, word came that two of three diesels failed at the Tokai Station as well.)

In the US, we supposedly fixed our diesels after much complaining by the industry. But in Japan, no one tells Tokyo Electric to do anything the Emperor of Electricity doesn't want to do.

I get lots of confidential notes from nuclear industry insiders. One engineer, a big name in the field, is especially concerned that Obama waved the come-hither check to Toshiba and Tokyo Electric to lure them to America. The US has a long history of whistleblowers willing to put themselves on the line to save the public. In our racketeering case in New York, the government only found out about the seismic test fraud because two courageous engineers, Gordon Dick and John Daly, gave our team the documentary evidence.

In Japan, it's simply not done. The culture does not allow the salary-men, who work all their their lives for one company, to drop the dime.

Not that US law is a wondrous shield: both engineers in the New York case were fired and blacklisted by the industry. Nevertheless, the government (local, state, federal) brought civil racketeering charges against the builders. The jury didn't buy the corporation's excuses and, in the end, the plant was, thankfully, dismantled.

Am I on some kind of xenophobic anti-Nippon crusade? No. In fact, I'm far more frightened by the American operators in the South Texas nuclear project, especially Shaw. Stone & Webster, now the Shaw nuclear division, was also the firm that conspired to fake the EDG tests in New York. (The company's other exploits have been exposed by their former consultant, John Perkins, in his book, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man.)
If the planet wants to shiver, consider this: Toshiba and Shaw have recently signed a deal to become world-wide partners in the construction of nuclear stations.

The other characters involved at the South Texas Plant that Obama is backing should also give you the willies. But as I'm in the middle of investigating the American partners, I'll save that for another day.

So, if we turned to America's own nuclear contractors, would we be safe? Well, two of the melting Japanese reactors, including the one whose building blew sky high, were built by General Electric of the Good Old US of A.

After Texas, you're next. The Obama Administration is planning a total of $56 billion in loans for nuclear reactors all over America.

And now, the homicides:

CNN is only interested in body counts, how many workers burnt by radiation, swept away or lost in the explosion. These plants are now releasing radioactive steam into the atmosphere. Be skeptical about the statements that the "levels are not dangerous." These are the same people who said these meltdowns could never happen. Over years, not days, there may be a thousand people, two thousand, ten thousand who will suffer from cancers induced by this radiation.

In my New York investigation, I had the unhappy job of totaling up post-meltdown "morbidity" rates for the county government. It would be irresponsible for me to estimate the number of cancer deaths that will occur from these releases without further information; but it is just plain criminal for the Tokyo Electric shoguns to say that these releases are not dangerous. Indeed, the fact that residents near the Japanese nuclear plants were not issued iodine pills to keep at the ready shows TEPCO doesn't care who lives and who dies whether in Japan or the USA. The carcinogenic isotopes that are released at Fukushima are already floating to Seattle with effects we simply cannot measure.

Heaven help us. Because Obama won't.

***

Greg Palast is the co-author of Democracy and Regulation, the United Nations ILO guide for public service regulators, with Jerrold Oppenheim and Theo MacGregor. Palast has advised regulators in 26 states and in 12 nations on the regulation of the utility industry.

Palast, whose reports can be seen on BBC Television Newsnight, is a Puffin Foundation Writing Fellow for investigative reporting.

Subscribe to Palast's Newsletter and podcasts.
Follow Palast on Facebook and Twitter. www.GregPalast.com

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