Leap Wireless iPhone Shakes Up Wireless Market With Prepaid Model l

Leap Wireless International Inc. (NASDAQ: LEAP) is out with the announcement that many consumers have been hoping for.  The company will now be the first pre-paid cellular carrier in the United States to offer the iPhone from Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL).  Leap’s Cricket service will begin offering the iPhone on Friday, June 22.  The move is meant to give the company a “leap” over rival MetroPCS Communications, Inc. (NYSE: PCS).

In a roundabout way you could imagine that this would be yet one more thorn in the side Sprint Nextel Corporation (NYSE: S).  You have to consider how much the iPhone cost Sprint here.  It was bad enough that CEO Dan Hesse had to deduct the iPhone plan gains from counting toward his incentive package.  Oops, imagine the iPhone being bad for your business!

This brings up a point for Leap too… Will the subsidy that Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) demands end up costing Leap money that it cannot afford?  Leap’s closing market value was $457 million as of Wednesday and Thomson Reuters already sees losses expected in 2012 and 2013 at -$3.52 EPS and -$2.22 EPS.

AT&T, Inc. (NYSE: T) and Verizon Communications (NYSE: VZ) are still the iPhone kings in America, and AT&T had a huge leap as far as the time exclusivity.

As far as what is being offered by Leap, this is the iPhone 4S and iPhone 4 at a price of $55 per month.  Customers will get unlimited talk, texting and data in the plan. The move is instantly helping out Leap Wireless shares.  Shares closed at $5.77 on Wednesday and the stock is up around $6.00 in the pre-market trading against a 52-week range of $4.68 to $17.66.

Read more: Leap Wireless iPhone Shakes Up Wireless Market With Prepaid Model - 24/7 Wall St. http://247wallst.com/2012/05/31/leap-wireless-iphone-shakes-up-wireless-market-with-prepaid-model/#ixzz1wSDhCVlx

Google Voice’s New Update Lets Users Manage Anonymous Calls

For all its faults, Google Voice has gotten to be pretty solid with regard to how it routes calls from different groups of people, and today the search giant has gussied up the service even more. According to the official Google Voice blog, a new update now gives users more control over what to do with people who hide their phone numbers when they call.

But let’s back up a minute here.

If you haven’t used Google Voice before, the service issues you a phone number that acts as sort of a catch-all for all the mobile devices you juggle everyday. Part of how it lets users manage all those phone calls is by allowing them to specify how calls from specific people or members of a group are treated. Google has been tweaking that process recently, most notably with the integration of Google+ Circles back in February, but today’s addition came about purely because their users have been clamoring for it.

Today’s update gives users more control over what to do with anonymous callers — people whose phone numbers are for one reason or another withheld from view. Setting up a new rule to govern these classes of callers takes just a few seconds, and it’s a trivial process to route those calls to a specially-designated phone. Of course, if you’d rather not deal with calls from the nameless, you could always just route them straight to voicemail. The update also lets users create those same rulesets for anyone already stored in your contact list — maybe they deserve a slightly warmer recorded greeting than those folks who won’t disclose who they are.

It’s a nice enough update and I’m sure more than a few people are wringing their hands in anticipation, but really — can we please get some MMS support? Or a way to mark all of our messages read from the web app? It’s not like we Google Voice users haven’t been waiting a few years, after all.

Obama Lies About Slowing Spending

There is no way to sugarcoat what I’m about to say–Barack Obama is a congenital liar. His lies are of such epic proportions that he makes Bill Clinton’s finger-pointing lie, pursuant to what took place between him and Monica Lewinsky, pale in comparison.

Obama’s latest epic lie is provided by Rex Nutting of MarketWatch. Nutting wrote an article titled “Obama Spending Binge Never Happened” which claimed that Obama slowed federal spending and Obama has been running with it since it was published.

I understand that most people have no idea how things really work at this level of politics. But, when it comes to presidential politics, they don’t tell what they had for breakfast without first doing focus-group studies and conducting a poll. I know firsthand that administrations have people they will approach to write favorable (read biased/slanted) articles for and about them. There are also those sycophants who would swim through a canal of horse manure let alone write a slanted piece in favor of Obama. Then there are the blind ideologues who believe whatever they are told to believe.

Which of these groups Nutting falls into can be debated sans his being truthful pursuant to same. But from where I stand, it has the White House fingerprints all over it. Nothing persuades me that his article “Obama Spending Binge Never Happened,” is not White House manufactured.

The tell-tale signs are all over it, including how quickly Obama latched onto it and claimed the manufactured facts in the article as true. The truth is their facts aren’t true. They’re as fallacious and misrepresented as Obama himself. Nutting’s assertions are based on a chart conveniently produced by Nutting (with, I argue, the WhiteHouse‘s assistance). The chart is supposed to show that Obama slowed federal spending to a level not witnessed since President Eisenhower.

But, as Anne Coulter points out in her article “Claim Obama Slowed Spending Shows Democrats’ Dishonesty”:

“Nutting, author of the phony MarketWatch chart, attributes all spending during Obama’s entire first year, up to Oct. 1, to President Bush. That means, for example, the $825 billion stimulus bill, proposed, lobbied for, signed and spent by Obama, goes in … Bush‘s column.” (Investors.com; 5/23/12)

Anne continues: “Nutting’s ‘analysis’ is so dishonest, even The New York Times has ignored it. The theory is that a new president is stuck with the budget of his predecessor, so the entire 2009 fiscal year should be attributed toBush. But Obama didn’t come in and live with the budget Bush had approved. He immediately signed off on enormous spending programs that had been specifically rejected by Bush.”

In my article titled “Nero In The White” I wrote:
Mr. Nixon and Clinton lied to save their backsides. Although, I would argue there are no plausible explanations for doing what they did, I could entertain arguments pursuant to understanding their rationales for lying. But in the case of Obama, he lies because he is a liar. He doesn’t only lie to cover his misdeeds – he lies to get his way. He lies to belittle others and to make himself look presentable at their expense. Helies about his faith, his associations, his mother, his father and his wife. He lies and bullies to keep his background secret. His lying is congenital and compounded by socio-psychological factors of his life.

Never in my life, inside or outside of politics, have I witnessed such dishonesty in a political leader. He is the most mendacious political figure I have ever witnessed. Even by the low standards of his presidential predecessors, his narcissistic, contumacious arrogance is unequalled. Using Obama as the bar,
Nero would have to be elevated to sainthood. (http://www.wnd.com/2011/08/331497/)
****************

As appalling as he is, I’ve watched two of his campaign commercials. They are without a doubt dishonest representations of our economic reality and morally opprobrious, but clearly not out of character for Obama. They, like his manufactured life’s story, are pure agitprop.

But Obama isn’t trying to reach those of you on my blog. My demographics show my followers to be educated and informed. It is my opinion that the Obama campaign have done their polling, and based on same, they believe they can win the election with 43 percent of the 47 percent of the people who pay no taxes and those on thegovernment dole.

We knew Obama had to lie about his record, and we knew there would be those who believed him. Obama doesn’t want people to know that nearly 70 million are now on some sort of government assistance. Government dependency increased 8.1 percent in the past year alone. During his time in office, the number of people on food stamps increased to nearly 50 million. The true unemployment number is still around 12 percent. Millions of jobs are gone forever; millions are unemployed and still more are dropping out of the job-search market altogether.

With the aforementioned being only the tip of the bad-news iceberg, it’s understandable that a pathological liarwould feel compelled to lie about his record. It’s understandable, but it isn’t forgivable.

Obama Frantic For A Deal With Iran

Israel/Netanyahu has reluctantly, and even hesitantly, agreed to step back from the military brink with Iran to allow Obama a six-month window within which to win an agreement with Iran in which the latter would abandon it’s endeavor to create a nuclear bomb. Here’s what DEBKAfile reported on May 19th: “Netanyahu and Ehud Barak have decided to stand back for Barack Obama to put his interim deal with Iran to the test, debkafile’s sources report. They decided to go along with it despite their reservations after receiving assurances from the White House that any Iranian violations would result in the immediate termination of all negotiations and bring military action forward as the sole remaining option for stopping a nuclear Iran. It was not clear if US intended to exercise the military itself. The Obama administration handed similar assurances to the G-8 leaders meeting at Camp David Saturday May 19.” That same report from DEBKAFILE went on to say the following: ” Israel’s qualified acquiescence to the deal negotiated by Washington was accompanied by assertions by its ministers that Iran was lying about its nuclear intentions and playing the world for a fool. Tehran would therefore not stand up to the test.” It’s not going well for Obama. Iran is playing Obama like a Stradivarius Iran is playing Obama like a Stradivarius. Plus, Obama, as the naive kid on the block, has invited Russia into the negotiation so than any deal with Iran will include Russia, thereby bringing a third party influence to the mix. (Actually, considering that Israel has given up none of its stake in the deal, there will now be FOUR countries involved in the negotiations even though Israel is silent.) Think about it a moment: Russia backs Iran AND Syria. Iran Backs Syria, as well. Obama’s blunder has now connected BOTH issues in such a way that the problem with a single country, Iran, is now a regional problem making the matter much, much, more complicated than before. It also turns the heat on Israel up even more. Seems to me, Obama is going to have to produce some extremely fancy footwork while perfectly juggling all the countries now involved and, at the same time, try to convince Israel not to renege on the deal with him and go bomb the living daylights out of Iran To be a fly on the wall within Israel’s government, (Netanyahu’s office, perhaps) would, I suspect, be very, well, interesting! It is well to remember that when Israel is publicly silent, that is when Israel is most dangerous to her enemies. Obama has rolled the dice and he is losing this crap game. Why Mr. Obama seems always afraid to go it alone, to stand tall, like a man, and confront America’s enemies rather than seek refuge in numbers and/or behind the skirts of America’s allies—and in Russia’s case—America’s enemies—is an utter mystery. Does he not understand it makes him, and America, appear weak? Does he not understand that in world politics perception is extremely important? Does he not understand that he is embarrassing his countrymen? I have lived through a lot of US Presidential administrations and I have yet to experience an American presidential administration as TIMID as the Obama administration. Considering the timidity of the Carter administration, that is saying a LOT. No wonder Netanyahu is frustrated. Bibi walks, talks, and acts like a man, an Alpha male, if you will. I would expect he would prefer to interact with an American with the same traits. Alas, he is stymied with Obama, an obvious metrosexual male—and it must be exasperating, infuriating, and confounding, all at the same time. In the meantime, the mess Obama is making of the Iranian situation is doing absolutely nothing toward moving the Iranians off the dime. Indeed, it would appear that it is only muddying the waters even more. In the end, when military action is finally taken it is this kind of “dance of the diplomatic dunces” that will run the death toll upwards and extend the military action longer than would have been necessary otherwise. By bringing Russia into the negotiations with Iran, Obama has pulled the unmitigated mess in Syria into the mix as well. Why? Is this part of that “flexibility” Obama promised Putin he’d demonstrate after the November election? Russia is supporting Bashar Assad, dictator of Syria, with arms, moral support, and—there have been reports that Russian boots are actually on the ground in Syria, as well. With Washington actively considering sending arms to the rebels in Syria, we may well be looking at another proxy war between the United States and Russia. Shades of the old Cold War, perhaps? From DEBKAfile comes this: “The Iranian nuclear impasse and the Syrian civil war are more tightly interlinked than ever by President Barack Obama’s decision to cooperate with Moscow for solutions of both - a partnership that promises the eventual three-way carving-up of Middle East influence. The six-month break Israel allowed Obama for diplomatic solutions before exercising its military option, gives Tehran the freedom to defy the six powers in nuclear negotiations and ties US hands against Bashar Assad’s atrocities. Obama’s diplomatic path is already cluttered with obstacles.” In the meantime, there are reports (by Reuters) from the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) that Iran has enough high grade uranium to produce at least five (5) nuclear bombs. The report by Reuters continued: “This is nearly 750 kg more than in the previous IAEA report issued in February, and ISIS said Iran’s monthly production had risen by roughly a third.” “This total amount of 3.5 percent low enriched uranium hexafluoride, if further enriched to weapon grade, is enough to make over five nuclear weapons,” ISIS said in its analysis.” It would appear that Iran is less than persuaded by Mr. Obama’s argument and/or threats(?). Need anyone be surprised? Courtesy of the Carter administration, Iran has much experience in “negotiating” with an American president and, as a result has little, if any, respect for the office of the US President. They will do (or say) whatever they feel necessary to maintain these on-going “talks” while, behind the curtain, they are continuing to enrich uranium as quickly and efficiently as possible. When they are ready, or when they grow tired of the charade, they will pull the plug on the talks and leave Obama slack-jawed wondering what happened. In the meantime, Israel would be well advised to maintain its military on a high state of alert while seriously considering canceling the deal with Obama in favor of the continued existence of their country.

J.D. Longstreet  Bio J.D. Longstreet Most recent columnsLongstreet is a conservative Southern American (A native sandlapper and an adopted Tar Heel) with a deep passion for the history, heritage, and culture of the southern states of America. At the same time he is a deeply loyal American believing strongly in “America First”. He is a thirty-year veteran of the broadcasting business, as an “in the field” and “on-air” news reporter (contributing to radio, TV, and newspapers) and a conservative broadcast commentator.  Longstreet is a veteran of the US Army and US Army Reserve. He is a member of the American Legion and the Sons of Confederate Veterans.  A lifelong Christian, Longstreet subscribes to “old Lutheranism” to express and exercise his faith.Other articles by Longstreet are posted at: “INSIGHT on Freedom” and at “The Sentinel Factor”

Is this Barack Obama’s Brain on Drugs?

We all know the difference between normal mistakes and those that hint at a deeper, more frightening problem, such as Alzheimer’s or another brain condition.  In light of this, how do you interpret a shocking mistake recently made by Barack Obama?  Writes Terry Jeffrey of CNS News:

In two campaign speeches over the last two days, President Barack Obama has twice mistakenly mentioned “my sons” when defending his administration’s regulation requiring virtually all health-care plans in the United States to provide women, without any fees or co-pay, with sterilizations and all Food and Drug Administration-approved contraceptives, including those that can cause abortions.

Given that Obama has, ostensibly, only daughters, where does such a mistake come from?  And how do you make it twice on two different occasions without correcting yourself?  Then again, how can an American president say, “I’ve now been in 57 states, I think – one left to go” without correcting himself?  Yes, Obama’s most recent bizarre slip of the mind makes me think of that older, equally bizarre one.  I mean, there are mistakes.

Then there are mistakes.

After all, it’s ingrained in every American child when extremely little that our nation has 50 states.  Fifty states, fifty states, fifty states, fifty states….  It should just roll off the tongue – in just the way the word “daughters” should when girls are all you’ve ever had.

Of course, this invites the quip – and it’s a good example of how there’s some truth behind every joke – that “American child” never described Obama, at least not in spirit.  But another possibility suggests itself:

Is Barack Obama brain-damaged?

I’m not just being a wise-guy.  With the president’s admitted past drug use and the recent revelations about how he was a member of the “Choom Gang” in high school, is it hard to imagine that he might have damaged his mind through the abuse of recreational drugs?

“Choom,” by the way, is slang for smoking marijuana.  And it seems that this gang activity was Obama’s favorite extra-curricular option in high school.  Writes ABC News’ Jonathan Karl:

In his 1995 memoir “Dreams of My Father,” Obama writes about smoking pot almost like Dr. Seuss wrote about eating green eggs and ham.  As a high school kid, Obama wrote, he would smoke “in a white classmate’s sparkling new van,” he would smoke “in the dorm room of some brother” and he would smoke “on the beach with a couple of Hawaiian kids.”
He would smoke it here and there.  He would smoke it anywhere.

Yes, I do like it, Uncle Scam I am.  In fact, as the Choom Gang story goes, Obama was a veritable Nikola Tesla of weed use who would actually start “pot-smoking trends.”  Add to this a diversity in drug inclinations that led him to dabble also in hard drugs, and perhaps it explains the soft head.

Of course, as for calling girls “sons,” there are other explanations.  Perhaps Obama is like those parents who don’t want to sex stereotype their children and thus are very pleased when their son dresses as a girl; maybe he’ll now refer to Malia and Sasha as sons half the time.  Perhaps he subscribes to the fashionable LBGT idea that “gender” is all a matter of perception.  Heck, apparently he already believes that one’s ideology and economic model needn’t have a relationship to reality.

Then, American Thinker editor Thomas Lifson theorizes that the explanation may be that Obama is hiding more than just a sordid past, writing:

It has never occurred to me that Barack Obama might have a second secret family, as Charles Kurault did, hidden from his first family (pardon the pun) and the general public.  I still find this hard to believe.
But what kind of brain freeze or derangement leads someone to refer to my sons, when two daughters are the only fruit of conception one has created?

Perhaps the freeze symptomatic of a fried brain?

Then again, Dr. Lifson could be right.  Maybe Obama had more of a reason than we think to say that if he had a son, he’d look like Trayvon. 

All joking aside, the only thing we can know for sure about Obama is that he’s a very bizarre man.  He had an absentee father, and, in his high-school yearbook, he acknowledged a drug dealer but not his quasi-absentee mother.  He seems to have received more ideology than love, as he was mentored by communist-party member Frank Marshall Davis, was drawn to Marxist professors in college and was a member of the socialist New Party in the 1990s.  And when you consider this, it’s not surprising that he turned to drugs during adolescence: it’s what kids with troubled upbringings often do.

As to this, C.S. Lewis once wrote something very profound about the significance of upbringing:

No justification of virtue will enable a man to be virtuous.  Without the aid of trained emotions the intellect is powerless against the animal organism.  I had sooner play cards against a man who was quite skeptical about ethics, but bred to believe that “a gentleman does not cheat”, than against an irreproachable moral philosopher who had been brought up among sharpers.

It’s hard to know for sure how scarred, in mind and soul, Obama is as a result of his bizarre youth.  But should we continue to take the chance of letting him play America’s hand?

Greek Retailers Stocking Up On Shutters In Case Of Riots, Alcohol Inventories Plunge

While America may be experiencing the occasional zombie apocalypse breakout, probably due to the absence of easily available edible iPads, Greek retailers are preparing for the retail version. "British electrical retailer Dixons has spent the last few weeks stockpiling security shutters to protect its nearly 100 stores across Greece in case of riot. The planning, says Dixons chief Sebastian James, may look alarmist but it's good to be prepared." Why Dixons? "Europe's No 2 electrical retailer Dixons owns Greece's market leading but loss-making Kotsovolos chain, which has a 25-percent market share selling iPads and laptops as well as washing machines, televisions and air conditioning units." There we go: Bill Dudley's edible iPads. The question is what happens when this easily digestable piece of plastic is thoroughly looted after local rioters dispense with the "shutters" supposedly protecting their wares. What will be on the menu next? Sadly not booze: "Diageo, the world's biggest spirits group and the name behind Johnnie Walker whisky and Smirnoff vodka, has reacted by slashing its marketing spend in Greece, reducing stock levels and pulling cash quickly out of the country after it saw its Greek sales halve in the last three years to less than 100 million pounds." So: no food, no booze, no cheap 99 cent iPad aps: this is the way the world's most miserable monetary experiment ends.

Who else is preparing for a peak in rioting, and how?

Company bosses around Europe agree. As the financial crisis in Greece worsens, companies are getting ready for everything from social unrest to a complete meltdown of the financial system.

Those preparations include sweeping cash out of Greece every night, cutting debts, weeding out badly paying customers and readying for a switch to a new Greek drachma if the country is forced to abandon the euro.

"Most companies are getting ready and preparing for a Greek exit and have looked at cash, treasury and currency issues," said Roger Bayly, a partner at advisory and accountancy firm KPMG.

Chief Executive James says the company has contingency plans to shutter up its 69 wholly owned and 29 franchised Greek stores and close them in the short term to protect against any threat of civil unrest and prepare for a switch to a new drachma.

Greece accounts for just over 3 percent of Dixon's annual sales of around 8.2 billion pounds. The company competes with Europe's No 1 electrical chain Metro and with a number of local players which James says may struggled to survive in a crisis.

"We know it would put paid to quite a lot of our competitors and give us an opportunity to get more of a market share. So we are ready and we would be very interested to see how it would turn out," said James.

Dixons should know what is the rioter's pick du jour:

Dixons, using its experience of dealing with riots in London and other British cities last summer - big flat-screen televisions were the looters' booty of choice - has ordered enough shutters to protect its stores and is working with the Greek police and security groups.

The group's sales dipped 9 percent in Italy, Greece and Turkey in the year to late April. The group does not split out Greek sales, but these three nations make up around 7 percent of the group's annual sales.

The 6 Greek Cs:

"Businesses need to build in protection by checking payment terms, sweeping cash out of subsidiaries and into other currencies and check on the vulnerability of suppliers," said Martin O'Donovan, ACT's deputy policy and technical director.

KPMG's Bayly advises his clients to check the six Cs when preparing for a possible Greek euro exit: cash, contracts, continuity, counterparties, control and commercial. He believes that automotive companies, tour operators and pharmaceutical groups would see the biggest immediate disruption from an early euro exit by Greece.

He argues most companies are well prepared on cash issues and contracts with suppliers, but less so on how they would cope with business continuity in the immediate aftermath of a euro exit.

The worst news? No more booze:

Diageo, the world's biggest spirits group and the name behind Johnnie Walker whisky and Smirnoff vodka, has reacted by slashing its marketing spend in Greece, reducing stock levels and pulling cash quickly out of the country after it saw its Greek sales halve in the last three years to less than 100 million pounds.

Diageo has weekly meetings aimed at cutting its exposure to Greece, protecting remaining sales by bolstering its own in-house distribution network, halting supplies to some small bars and focusing on high-end hotels and clubs.

Diageo's Chief Marketing Officer Andy Fennell says its Greek sales are still falling. The once big Johnnie Walker market has already shrunk and now accounts for less than one percent of the group's 10 billion pound annual turnover.

"There could be a marked impact on Greece but the big question is what happens elsewhere across the eurozone," Fennell said with an eye on Diageo's bigger troubled markets inside the eurozone such as Spain and Ireland.

The best news: new drachma will be well stocked and easily available:

De La Rue, which as the world's biggest commercial banknote printer produces more than 150 currencies, has made no comment. Analysts say Greece could have to turn to outside printers because of the sheer quantity of banknotes needed.

Of course, if after reading this any Greeks are still not utterly terrified of what their vote for Syriza would bring (nothing but Keynesian fire and brimstone), very soon precogs will be released to arrest any and all who dare to vote for ending a disastrous monetary experiment which will eventually unleash what happened in Miami over the weekend, worldwide.

Powerful 'Flame' cyber weapon found in Mideast

Most complex piece of malicious software yet found; speculation may now grow over countries deploying cyber weapons.BOSTON - Security experts have discovered a new data-stealing virus dubbed Flame they say has lurked inside thousands of computers across the Middle East for as long as five years as part of a sophisticated cyber warfare campaign.

It is the most complex piece of malicious software discovered to date, said Kaspersky Lab security senior researcher Roel Schouwenberg, whose company discovered the virus. The results of the Lab's work were made available on Monday.

Related:

• Suspected cyber attack hits Iran oil industry
• Israel, US move to expedite entry for frequent travelers

Schouwenberg said he did not know who built Flame.

If the Lab's analysis is correct, Flame could be the third major cyber weapon uncovered after the Stuxnet virus that attacked Iran's nuclear program in 2010, and its data-stealing cousin Duqu, named after the Star Wars villain.

The discovery by one of the world's largest makers of anti-virus software will likely fuel speculation that nations have already secretly deployed other cyber weapons.

"If Flame went on undiscovered for five years, the only logical conclusion is that there are other operations ongoing that we don't know about," Schouwenberg said in an interview.

The Moscow-based company is controlled by Russian malware researcher Eugene Kaspersky, and gained notoriety in cyber weapons research after solving several mysteries surrounding Stuxnet and Duqu.

Researchers at Kaspersky said they were only starting to understand how Flame works because it is so complex. The full significance will not be known until other cyber security firms obtain samples of Flame.

The Lab's research shows the largest number of infected machines are in Iran, followed by the Israel and the Palestinian territories, then Sudan and Syria.

Complex virus

The virus contains about 20 times as much code as Stuxnet, which attacked an Iranian uranium enrichment facility, causing centrifuges to fail. It has about 100 times as much code as a typical virus designed to steal financial information, Schouwenberg said.

Flame can gather data files, remotely change settings on computers, turn on PC microphones to record conversations, take screen shots and log instant messaging chats.

He said there was evidence to suggest the code was commissioned by the same nation or nations that were behind Stuxnet and Duqu, which were built on a common platform.

Both Flame and Stuxnet appear to infect machines by exploiting the same flaw in the Windows operating system and employ a similar way of spreading.

That means the teams that built Stuxnet and Duqu might have had access to the same technology as the team that built Flame, he said.

Schouwenberg said he believed the attack was highly targeted, aimed mainly at businesses and academic institutions.

He estimated that no more than 5,000 personal computers around the world have been infected, including a handful in North America.

Kaspersky Lab discovered Flame while investigating reports that a virus dubbed Wiper was attacking computers in Iran.

The International Telecommunications Union, a UN agency that promotes research and cooperation on telecommunications technology, asked Kaspersky Lab to investigate those reports.

Schouwenberg said that his team discovered Flame, but failed to turn up anything that resembled Wiper.

US diplomat: Israel is right to be concerned about time running out on nuclear Iran

In an unusual briefing to reporters in Tel Aviv, Saturday, May 26, the unnamed US official, described as having intimate knowledge of the Baghdad talks, said: Israel’s concerns are justified and “we are doubtful it is possible to reach an agreement with Iran, but we must exhaust the diplomatic path because the alternative, whether a nuclear Iran or a regional war, is very serious.” DEBKAfile: This was a paraphrase of the contention by Israeli officials that an attack is preferable to a nuclear Iran. The official went on to say that the US would continue to pressure Iran with sanctions until it ceased enriching uranium.
These comments were the US answer to DEBKAfile's disclosures Friday, May 25, that President Obama had rejected Israel’s demands of Iran and, the next day, that Israeli leaders’ refused to meet the senior US delegate to the Baghdad talks, State’s Wendy Sherman.

Obama’s March of Treason on the World Stage

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again.
Obama’s dealings on the world stage are NOT inept. He does what he does…On purpose. He is intentionally trying to wreck any and all ability for the United States to protect our one national security and the security of our allies.
Obama should NOT be trusted…By ANYBODY except our and our ally’s enemies.
Right now, Obama and his administration are trying to work a deal…Placate…Iran over their nuclear weapons program. Israel should NOT trust, or wait for, Obama to make the situation better. The ONLY entity which will benefit from Obama’s actions in this arena is Iran.
What we have learned THIS week should make this Obama doctrine VERY CLEAR.
We have learned that the Obama administration, in the days following the bin Laden raid, started their victory lap and spiking of the football by allowing Hollywood unprecedented access to information about how that raid was accomplished.

Judicial Watch obtained records through the Freedom of Information Act which show that a Hollywood Director and producer were taken to a building so secure that its name had to be redacted from the documents. They are making a movie which has been set to be released right before the November election and which will be VERY complimentary of Obama. While we don’t know what all information was given to Hollywood, we know they had MORE access than ANYONE should have.
This compromises national security REGARDLESS of the nature of the information, notes, plans etc turned over as Hollywood is incapable of even keeping the PLOT of their next movie a secret.
We have also learned, this week, that Obama and his administration blew the cover of a double agent who halted the latest underwear bomber just a couple of weeks ago. This guy was CIA, undercover with al Qaeda and working closely with British Intelligence. The British knew they could keep this guy on the inside, picking up MORE information for several more weeks. That is…UNTIL…An Obama administration gum flapper OUTED the guy ON NATIONAL TELEVISION.
Now, al Qaeda knows what we’ve been doing and they know what ELSE this guy may know and they can alter plans, scrap plans or simply, change targets. Who does THIS help?
Al Qaeda. That’s who.
Now, over the last 2 days, we are learning of Dr. Shakil Afridi,  Pakistani doctor who ran a vaccination program in Abbottabad and was collecting DNA samples. His work and cooperation with the CIA was a key to pinpointing the existence of bin Laden at that compound in Abbottabad.
Dr. Afridi has now been sentenced to 33 years in a Pakistani prison for treason by his government as a traitor.
It was Obama and the Obama administration who outed Dr. Afridi.
Instead of, on the night of the bin Laden raid, extracting Dr. Afridi and his entire family and bringing them to safety in the United States, Obama threw him under the bus for his assistance in taking out bin Laden.
Again, this is as far from ineptitude as it can possible be.
Obama KNEW that the Pakistani government could not be trusted and were not true allies. That is exactly why Pakistan was NOT informed of the bin Laden Raid. Our military had contingency plans in case Pakistan moved against the SEALS during the raid itself.
Obama and his administration KNEW how Pakistan would react to the raid. Pakistan had been hiding bin Laden for YEARS and the bin Laden compound was a stone’s throw from Pakistan’s version of West Point.
Obama KNEW all this and yet he outs Dr. Afridi?
Oh yes, of course, NOW, the state department is demanding Dr. Afridi’s release. NOW they say he was working as much on the behalf of Pakistan as he was for US and that the doctor’s actions were providing security for Pakistan. NOW they say all this.
It’s CYA time.
Dr. Afriodi and his family should have been out of Pakistan by the time our SEAL team left the compound.
SEAL Team 6? Who outted the team that works from the shadows and likes it that way?
Obama.
Who demanded that the Muslim Brotherhood have a seat at the table in Egypt?
Obama.
How led from behind to remove Gaddafi from power so that an al Qaeda flag could fly from the courthouse in Benghazi?
Obama.
Who would rather kill terrorists with drones than capture them to retrieve intel?
Obama.
Who is engaged in a catch and release program with the Taliban?
Obama.
Who did nothing as Iraq released a top Hezbolla terrorist who is tied to the deaths of Americans?
Obama.
Who has been telegraphing troop movements and pull out dates to our enemies?
Obama.
Who told Netanyahu to revert back to his nation’s indefensible pre 1967 borders?
Obama.
Who told the Russians he would have more flexibility in regard to missile defense systems after his reelection?
Obama.
Who backs Palestinian statehood at the United Nations?
Obama.
Who did nothing when one of our top secret drones “landed itself” in Iran?
Obama.
Who is willing to accept a wink and a smile from Iran that it won’t enrich uranium past the point needed to produce domestic power?
Obama.
Who outed the CIA’s inbedded agent who foiled the latest underwear bomb plot?
Obama.
Who outed the Pakistani doctor who played a key role in taking out bin Laden?
Obama.
Who allowed unprecedented access to Hollywood of top secret locations and quite possibly the plans used to take out bin Laden in order to secure a big screen kiss on the ass just a week or two before the 2012 elections?
Obama.
Who is inept?
NOT Obama.
There is no possible way to believe all of this can be chalked up to ineptitude. Obama has, over 3 ½ years, engineered this series of events.
Finally, who benefits from Obama’s actions? US? Our allies? Or our enemies?
Well…It’s not us and it’s not our allies.

Sign of the Times? Car Buyers Stretch on Loans

As auto sales grow so is the length of time consumers are taking to pay for their new car or truck.

Marc Romanelli | Riser | Getty Images

Experian Automotive analyzed the nearly five million auto loans written in the first quarter of this year and found the average length for a new vehicle loan has grown to 64 months, up 1 month compared to the first quarter of 2011.

“It’s all about managing the monthly payment,” says Melinda Zabritski, Director of Automotive Credit. “People are taking out longer loans so the payment is right.”

Right now, the average monthly auto loan payment is $461, a dollar higher than it was last year. The average amount financed is $25,995 (up $589 compared to last year). As consumers try to keep their car payment in check, they are increasingly signing up for loans that stretch out over 6 and 7 years. In the first quarter there was a 15.4% surge in auto loans running 73-84 months.

The first quarter also saw an increase in the percentage of loans written for those buyers with non-prime credit scores. More than 23% of the loans in Q1 were for buyers with non-prime, subprime, and deep subprime credit scores. All three of those groups saw at least a 10% surge in new loans.

Should that growth in subprime auto loans be a concern? Not necessarily.

“As the economy improves and more credit becomes available, this is the natural development of the market,” says Zabritski. “If lenders are managing those loans properly, it is not an issue.”

Experian says 30 and 60 day delinquencies both fell in the first quarter, while repossessions fell by 37%.

Law Of The Sea Treaty = The Rape of America

The Obama Administration has dragged the Law of the Sea Treaty back before the US Senate this week. The treaty, if approved by the Senate will amount to the rape of America. Here’s what the Center for Security Policy has to say about the Law Of The Sea Treaty:  “If, on the other hand, the members of the U.S. Senate trouble themselves to study, or at least read, the text of the Law of the Sea Treaty, they would immediately see it for what it really is: a diplomatic dinosaur, a throwback to a bygone era when UN negotiations were dominated by communists of the Soviet Union and their fellow-travelers in the Third World. These adversaries’ agenda was transparent and wholly inimical to American equities. They sought to: establish control over 70% of the world’s surface; create an international governing institution that would serve as a model for bringing nation states like ours to heel; and redistribute the planet’s wealth and technology from the developed world to themselves.  LOST codifies such arrangements – and would subject us to mandatory dispute resolution to enforce them via stacked-deck adjudication panels.” SOURCE. Still, many, if not MOST, Americans have never heard of it—the Law Of The Sea Treaty. So why is it important? OK, let’s look at some reasons why the Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST) is important to you as an American and to all inhabitants of the earth: Why We Lose if LOST Wins By asserting UN authority over seven-tenths of the Earth’s surface, LOST would be the largest territorial conquest in history. In principle, the treaty would assert UN jurisdiction over U.S. territorial waters, and eventually over waterways within our country. It would create a huge bureaucratic entity called the “Enterprise” which would regulate and tax all commercial uses of the high seas. By taxing all efforts to develop the wealth of the seabed, the UN would be given a huge revenue stream, independent of national governments, to push its agenda for international socialism. The treaty would require the redistribution of cutting-edge technology from the U.S. to all governments in the “developing world,” including extremely repressive governments. Get the picture???  It’s that cussed “One World Government thing again!  (Otherwise known as “Global Governance) You know… the “GLOBALISTS” at work. Apparatchiks from the Obama Administration will trudge over to the US Senate this week to sing the praises of LOST.  They will applaud it and explain to the Senators that it is the best thing since the US Constitution for America, indeed, for the whole world. It will be a pack of lies. So, where do we stand today on LOST?  Not good, I’m afraid. The National Center for Public Policy Research has a website providing educational resources on the Law of the Sea Treaty (also known by the acronyms LOST and UNCLOS). “The Law of the Sea Treaty is a terrible deal for the U.S.  It would threaten our sovereignty, place a significant portion of the world’s resources under the control of a U.N.-style body, and complicate our efforts to apprehend terrorists on the high seas by subjecting our actions to review by an international court unlikely to render decisions favorable to the U.S.,” said National Center Vice President David Ridenour. “The Law of the Sea Treaty would help radical environmentalists achieve what they haven’t been able to achieve through legislation,” Ridenour added.  “Greenpeace has said ‘the benefits of the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea are substantial, including its basic duties for states to protect and preserve the marine environment and to conserve marine living species.’  The Natural Resources Defense Council challenged the Navy’s use of ‘intense active sonar,’ arguing that it violates the treaty by posing a danger to marine life.  The Navy ultimately agreed to scale back use of this technology.  The Law of the Sea Treaty has also been used by Australia and New Zealand in an attempt to shut down an experimental blue fin tuna fishing program and by Ireland in an attempt to shut down a plant on land in England” The website, the United National Law of the Sea Treaty Information Center, contains a collection of research papers, commentaries and blog entries about LOST from a variety of think-tanks, scholars, opinion writers and bloggers.  It can be accessed at:unlawoftheseatreaty.org. “Although the Law of the Sea Treaty has been around for decades—the National Center for Public Policy Research first worked on it in 1982—relatively few people know much about it,” said Amy Ridenour, president of the National Center for Public Policy Research.  “The United Nations Law of the Sea Treaty Information Center website is designed to help correct this.” The National Center for Public Policy Research is a non-partisan, non-profit educational foundation based in Washington, D.C. It is more important now then ever before to contact your senators and urge them to oppose the Law of the Sea Treaty. Look. This Law Of The Sea Treaty is serious socialist, global governance, trickery!  And NOBODY IS Talking ABOUT IT!  Of course, we cannot expect the so-called “Mainstream Media” in America to bring it up, being so deep in the bunker for Obama, that is.  The near incestuous relationship between the MsM and Obama prevents them from actually informing their readers, listeners, and viewers, of important, pending, life-changing policy being considered in the nation’s legislature. We urge you to educate yourself about the Law Of The Sea Treaty—and do so quickly. In the meantime, however, we suggest that you get on the phone, or send an e-mail or fax to the offices of your US Senators and ask them to vote NO on the Law Of The Sea Treaty. Every so often, we get a chance to use our constitutional rights for good.  This is one of those times.

China fake parts 'used in US military equipment'

The failure of a single electronic part in any military plane could pose safety and national security risks and imposes higher costs on the Pentagon, the report said

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• How will the new US military look?
• Re-ordering of US defence priorities

Vast numbers of counterfeit Chinese electronic parts are being used in US military equipment, a key Senate committee has reported.

A year-long probe found 1,800 cases of fake parts in US military aircraft, the Senate Armed Services Committee said.

More than 70% of an estimated one million suspect parts were traced back to China, the report said.

It blamed weaknesses in the US supply chain, and China's failure to curb the counterfeit market.

The failure of a key part could pose safety and national security risks and lead to higher costs for the Pentagon, the committee said.

US servicemen rely on a variety of "small, incredibly sophisticated electronic components" found in night vision systems, radios and GPS devices and the failure of a single part could put a soldier at risk, the report said.

It highlighted suspect counterfeit parts in SH-60B helicopters used by the Navy, in C-130J and C-27J cargo planes and in the Navy's P-8A Poseidon plane.

After China, the UK and Canada were found to be the next-largest source countries for fake parts.

Continue reading the main story

“Start Quote

Rather than acknowledging the problem and moving aggressively to shut down counterfeiters, the Chinese government has tried to avoid scrutiny”

Report on counterfeit electronic partsUS Senate Armed Services Committee

'Avoiding scrutiny'

The committee criticised China for failing to shut down counterfeit manufacturers and said that committee staff wanting to travel to China for the investigation had not been granted visas.

"Counterfeit electronic parts are sold openly in public markets in China," the report said.

"Rather than acknowledging the problem and moving aggressively to shut down counterfeiters, the Chinese government has tried to avoid scrutiny," it added.

But the report said that use of Department of Defense programmes such as the Government-Industry Data Exchange Program (GIDEP), designed to log suspected fake parts, were "woefully lacking".

Between 2009 and 2010 the GIDEP only received 217 reports relating to suspected fake counterfeit components, the majority of which were filed by just six companies, it said. Only 13 reports came from government agencies.

The report also said that in some cases the US defence department had reimbursed contractors for the costs they incurred as a result of their failure to spot fake components in their own supply chain - giving companies no incentive to weed out counterfeits themselves.

But it praised the National Defense Authorization Act, signed into law on 31 December 2011 by President Barack Obama, which aims to stop counterfeit parts from entering the country and would cut down on sourcing components from unknown suppliers.

The report's focus on China comes as the US is beginning the task of "pivoting" its defence strategy towards the Asia-Pacific region.

The Pentagon is also preparing to absorb about $450bn (£285bn) of cuts over the next decade.

But it could face cutbacks of a further $500bn if mandatory across-the-board spending cuts come into effect at the end of 2012, after Congress failed to reach a deficit reduction plan last year.

Obama secretly approves top-of-the-line anti-tank arms for Syrian rebels

Monday, May 21, UN Secretary Ban Ki-moon said he was "extremely troubled about the risk of an all-out civil war (in Syria) and was concerned about the outbreak of related violence in Lebanon."
He spoke as dozens of Syrians died in clashes - mostly in the provinces of Aleppo and Idlib and the town of Homs - while two people were killed in Beirut in a spillover of Syrian bloodshed.

Sunday, at the NATO summit in Chicago, Secretary Anders Fogh Rasmussen said firmly that the alliance has "no intention" of taking military action against President Bashar Assad's regime. But he said nothing about individual NATO members translating their concern about the escalating violence in Syria into military action. Above all, he did not explain why Syrian army heavy T-72 tanks have in recent days started bursting into flames on the open roads.
DEBKAfile’s military sources disclose the cause: The Syrian rebels have received their first “third generation” anti-tank weapons, 9K115-2 Metis-M and Kornet E. They are supplied by Saudi and Qatari intelligence agencies following a secret message from President Barack Obama advising them to up the military stake in the effort to oust Assad.
Saturday, May 19, President Obama said in a speech to the G-8 summit at Camp David that “Bashar al-Assad must leave power.” Listening to him were Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev whose government strongly opposes the bid to topple Assad and is helping him to weather the uprising against his rule.
Medvedev and Chinese leader Hu Jintao both kept silent after Obama spoke. Both would have had intelligence updates relayed to Camp David on the latest turn of events in Syria.
The supply of powerful anti-tank missiles to the Syrian rebels is intended to achieve two purposes:

1. To impede Syrian military tank movements between flashpoints. During the 14-month uprising, there was nothing to stop Syrian tanks criss-crossing the country as back-up for the official crackdown on dissent. But in recent weeks, trucks hauling the T-72 are being blown up before they reach their destinations.
2.  The sight of blazing tanks is intended to undermine army morale and puncture the self-assurance of the security circles surrounding the president.
The anti-tank missiles reaching the rebels through Saudi and Qatari channels are only one facet of the unfolding US plan for the Syrian crisis, our military sources report. Turkish intelligence has been given the green light to arm Syria rebels with IED roadside bombs tailored for the Syrian theater and intensively train the dissidents in their use at Turkish military facilities. This is tantamount to Ankara’s first direct military intervention in Syria.
How will Assad and his backers in Tehran and Moscow handle the upscale of rebel munitions?
According to our sources, the Syrian ruler and his cronies are not shaken in their conviction that even with heavy weapons in play they will suppress the revolt, because the majority of the population is still behind the regime and because the rebels will find it hard to wield the advanced systems, especially by day.
But his Russian and Iranian military and intelligence advisers are growing less sanguine as they watch foreign military intervention expand step by step. They are warning the Syrian ruler that the advanced missiles reaching the rebels represent the most dangerous development his regime has faced to date. They reckon that, after failing to ignite a full-dress unified rebellion inside the main Syrian cities, the West and the Arab states have turned to equipping anti-Assad rebel forces for pursuing sustained guerilla warfare between the big cities - on the main roads and in rural and mountainous areas.
Russian and Iranian tacticians agree that the Syrian army, like most other regular armies, is not trained or structured for combating guerilla forces. Adapting it to the new peril would be a long process. 

Sisters Spend $150 Million for Two Houses

http://online.wsj.com/video/202CFC67-86BC-4451-885D-2E788A463051.html?wsj_hpp_tboright

Emerging US-Iran interim nuclear deal endangers Israel

Yukiya Amano, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, is entrusted with a decisive mission in Tehran Sunday, May 20: collecting Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s broad endorsement of the interim eight-point deal he and US President Barack Obama have drafted through secret dialogue.DEBKAfile has obtained exclusive access to the eight points - with the caveat that they may not be final. The details are still to be hammered out and proved practicable. But the way the deal stands now, it will be unacceptable to Israel because if affords Iran enough leeway to carry on developing a nuclear bomb program with no real hindrance.
The White House is waiting tensely for Khamenei’s nod to activate the link promised by Obama between their back-track talks and the formal negotiations the Six Powers (P5+1) negotiations with Iran, which go forward in Baghdad on May 23. This link would grant the bilateral US-Iranian deal UN-world power imprimatur and vindicate the US president’s contested Iran policy.
From that moment, Israel would find it doubly hard to go through with its military option against Iran’s nuclear sites without risk of international isolation and opprobrium.
Until that moment, the Obama administration had found Israel’s threatening stance useful for bending Iran to a diplomatic accommodation on its nuclear plans, while at the same time holding Jerusalem back from actually going through with its threat.
It was this double game that made the US-Iranian dialogue workable.
It was also used adroitly by Khamenei to achieve another of the Islamic Republic’s key strategic goals, to destroy the abiding friendship between the US and the Zionist state. The Iranian leader’s main argument to his colleagues in support of his secret dealings with the US president was that sanctions were well worth enduring if at the end of the road a deal with the US forced a breach between Washington and Jerusalem and so substantially weakened the Jewish state.
DEBKAfile has obtained exclusive access to the eight-point draft with the caveat that it may not be final; the details remained to be hammered out and proved practicable:
1. Because the US and Iran agree that a real and comprehensive accord for halting Tehran’s nuclear program is unobtainable, they are accepting an interim agreement with each party at liberty to interpret its substance and future implementation in its own manner.
DEBKAfile:  This wording allows Obama to assure the American voter and Western public that Tehran has capitulated on its nuclear ambitions while, at the same time, Khamenei portrays America to Iranians and Muslims as having yielded on recognizing Iran’s right to develop an independent nuclear program, enrich uranium and continue its drive for a bomb.
2.  Iran will suspend uranium enrichment up to the near-weapons grade of 20 percent but not dismantle or stop work at the Fordo underground nuclear plant as Israel demands.
3.  Iran will export its stock of 110 kilograms of 20-percent enriched uranium which can be used for producing a weapon. This material will be reprocessed and returned as fuel plates from which it is much more difficult though not impossible to make a bomb.
4. No ceiling will be placed on the production of low-enriched uranium of 3.5-5 percent purity.DEBKAfile: Washington tacitly grants this concession by leaving it off the record.
5.  Iran will sign the Non-Proliferation Accord’s additional protocol and so permit the expansion of IAEA on-site inspections.
6.  The secret Iranian nuclear sites of which Washington has no explicit knowledge will also be omitted from the record and therefore outside the sphere of international inspection.
DEBKAfile: The guiding principle governing America’s approach to the eight-point interim accord therefore is, “Don’t know; don’t want to see.”
7.  The US and European Union will dilute sanctions against Iran stage by stage. DEBKAfile: Here too, dual tactics will be used: The formal embargo on Iran’s central bank and its exclusion from the SWIFT international money transfer system will not be formally annulled. However a blind eye will be applied to any small banks in the West executing Iran’s international business, just as the sanction-busting measures used by China, Russia, India and Turkey to their trade with Iran, were tolerated.
8.  The US and Europe will revoke the oil embargo due to go into effect on July 1, 2012.
DEBKAfile: While the Obama administration has given its “agreement-in-principle on the interim deal,” the Iranian leader has not yet endorsed it. Hence the Amano mission to Tehran Sunday.
If he comes away with a nod from Tehran, Obama will have achieved two key objectives:  the world power talks with Iran can proceed through sessions spaced several weeks apart until the November date of the US presidential election, and Israel will be constrained from striking Iran before that date.
Last week, Israel reiterated its demand for Iran to stop uranium enrichment at any grade and dismantle the Fordo nuclear facility as non-negotiable.
The interim agreement drafted by Obama and Khamenei will therefore be unacceptable to Israel because it provides for neither and so affords Iran enough leeway to carry on developing a nuclear bomb program with no real hindrance.