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Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Television audience ratings for U.S. TV host Conan O’Brien’s first TBS program Conan last night were higher than rival Jay Leno and his late night program on NBC, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. O’Brien’s ratings were also higher than CBS network’s David Letterman, as well as Comedy Central programs hosted by Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert.

Monday marked O’Brien’s return to late night television after his departure as host of The Tonight Show on NBC following a dispute this year, in which Leno’s program The Jay Leno Show was canceled after poor ratings, and NBC reinstated Leno as host of The Tonight Show.

O’Brien’s debut program featured guests including curator Arlene Wagner of the Leavenworth Nutcracker Museum, actor Seth Rogen and actress Lea Michele. His guest schedule for Tuesday night’s program included actors Tom Hanks and Jack McBrayer, in addition to music from the group Soundgarden.

The premiere of Conan was watched by over 4.1 million viewers. Nielsen ratings data made public today showed that Leno’s program The Tonight Show was only watched by 3.5 million viewers, and Letterman’s Late Show was seen by 3.4 million people. The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report were watched by 1.3 million and 1 million viewers, respectively.

O’Brien announced his move to TBS, a cable channel founded by Ted Turner and owned by Time Warner, in April.

O’Brien’s viewership trended towards younger people, with 2,451,000 individuals ranges from ages 18 to 34 – and 3,285,000 people in the 18 to 49 age demographic. Leno’s The Tonight Show, in comparison, only drew in 950,000 people in the same younger demographic breakdown.

In an analysis of O’Brien’s ratings win, Dave Itzkoff of The New York Times wrote, “the debut of ‘Conan,’ the new late-night show starring Conan O’Brien, got off to a strong start”. James Hibberd commented for The Hollywood Reporter, “Conan O’Brien is enjoying a sweet, sweet victory in the ratings.”

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Toyota has been accused by a U.S. House of Representatives committee with misleading the public and investigators over its recent recalls.

The accusations, in a statement from the House Energy and Commerce Committee, claim that Toyota both relied on a flawed study in its assessment of the issue of sticking accelerator pedals at the heart of the recalls, and then made misleading statements about its response. According to the authors of the letter, Henry Waxman and Bart Stupak, Toyota dismissed, rather than investigated, the idea that the cars’ computers were at fault. In a statement, James Lentz, the president of Toyota’s American division, claimed that hardware issues were to blame, and that dealers were repairing the faulty part. Toyota also released a study commissioned from the research firm Exponent that said electronic systems were not to blame.

According to the House committee, however, the study involved only six vehicles, none of which had problems with their electrical systems, and was insufficient to produce an accurate result. “Our preliminary assessment is that Toyota resisted the possibility that electronic defects could cause safety concerns, relied on a flawed engineering report and made misleading public statements concerning the adequacy of recent recalls to address the risk of sudden unintended acceleration.”

The company is under a criminal investigation, and has received two subpoenas for documents from two House committees relating to the recalls, although whether they are directly related to the letter is unclear. The documents are related to accelerator issues in several models, as well as brake problems with the Prius hybrid car, and were served earlier in in February by a federal grand jury and the Securities and Exchange Commission. Toyota has released upwards of 75,000 pages of documents under the requests.

In a separate, though related, development, it has emerged that Toyota last year negotiated a limited recall for two models, the Toyota Camry and Lexus ES, that were affected by the accelerator recalls, saving the company an estimated $100 million. A confidential internal presentation in July 2009 made the claim, and a month later, a Lexus ES, one of the models under the limited recall crashed in California, killing four people. The claims apparently referenced a September, 2007 recall of floor mats that could trap gas pedals, the same problem that triggered a full recall of numerous Toyota cars to fix the same problem. In the same presentation, the company claimed to have avoided recalls of another model related to rust, as well as delaying new federal safety regulations.

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Monday, July 6, 2009

The Obama administration has given the National Security Agency powers to screen private Internet traffic going to and from government sites, and will use AT&T telecommunications as a likely test site. The Obama administration remains firm in this decision, which was put forth during the Bush administration.

The agency defends military networks with a classified system named Tutelag, which decides how to handle malware intrusions (for example, whether to block them or to investigate more closely). “We absolutely intend to use the technical resources, the substantial ones, that NSA has,” said Janet Napolitano, Secretary of the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS). DHS’s intrusion detection program, Einstein version 3, is in development as version 2 is being deployed. The program defends all U.S. government agencies and departments.

DHS spokeswoman Amy Kudwa said, “We are moving forward in a way that protects privacy and civil liberties.”

AT&T, the chosen test site under Bush, sought assurance from the Obama administration to determine what elements of Einstein 3 to preserve. AT&T officials declined to comment.

In 2006 the Electronic Frontier Foundation filed the class action lawsuit Hepting v. AT&T—currently awaiting decision—against AT&T, which under the Bush administration permitted the NSA to look at domestic communications without a warrant. NSA’s intelligence gathering is limited only to foreign communications.

“We came away saying they have a lot of work in front of them to get this done right,” Ari Schwartz of the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) said. “We’re looking forward to their next steps.”

Schwartz authored a letter on Einstein to the Office of Management and Budget in December 2008 on behalf of the Information Security and Privacy Advisory Board.

NSA director Keith B. Alexander said in April 2009 that the NSA will help, but does not want to take charge. Several people—including Rod Beckstrom, who resigned over the issue as head of the National Cyber Security Center (NCSC); Bruce Schneier of BT Counterpane; Leslie Harris, president and CEO of CDT—and not Dennis Blair, Director of National Intelligence—have urged the Obama administration to keep the Department of Homeland Security in charge despite its low scores, because, they claim, the NSA is a spy agency.

Sunday, September 4, 2005

In Louisiana, southeast of New Orleans, two storage tanks estimated to be filled with up to 160,000 barrels (6.7 million gallons) of oil are reported to be leaking into the Mississippi River. It was first noticed on September 1, 2005 by an aircraft flying overhead. Officials are not certain whether the tanks are the cause of the leak or how full the tanks are. Inspection of the storage tanks from the ground is impossible due to flooding in the area.

In comparison, the Exxon Valdez oil spill off Alaska leaked between 11 and 35 million gallons of oil.

Due to massive efforts directed toward search and rescue in New Orleans, the Coast Guard has not been able to look into the matter.

Sunday, October 21, 2007

Torture proliferates American headlines today: whether its use is defensible in certain contexts and the morality of the practice. Wikinews reporter David Shankbone was curious about torture in American popular culture. This is the first of a two part series examining the BDSM business. This interview focuses on the owners of a dungeon, what they charge, what the clients are like and how they handle their needs.

When Shankbone rings the bell of “HC & Co.” he has no idea what to expect. A BDSM (Bondage Discipline Sadism Masochism) dungeon is a legal enterprise in New York City, and there are more than a few businesses that cater to a clientèle that wants an enema, a spanking, to be dressed like a baby or to wear women’s clothing. Shankbone went to find out what these businesses are like, who runs them, who works at them, and who frequents them. He spent three hours one night in what is considered one of the more upscale establishments in Manhattan, Rebecca’s Hidden Chamber, where according to The Village Voice, “you can take your girlfriend or wife, and have them treated with respect—unless they hope to be treated with something other than respect!”

When Shankbone arrived on the sixth floor of a midtown office building, the elevator opened up to a hallway where a smiling Rebecca greeted him. She is a beautiful forty-ish Long Island mother of three who is dressed in smart black pants and a black turtleneck that reaches up to her blond-streaked hair pulled back in a bushy ponytail. “Are you David Shankbone? We’re so excited to meet you!” she says, and leads him down the hall to a living room area with a sofa, a television playing an action-thriller, an open supply cabinet stocked with enema kits, and her husband Bill sitting at the computer trying to find where the re-release of Blade Runner is playing at the local theater. “I don’t like that movie,” says Rebecca.

Perhaps the most poignant moment came at the end of the night when Shankbone was waiting to be escorted out (to avoid running into a client). Rebecca came into the room and sat on the sofa. “You know, a lot of people out there would like to see me burn for what I do,” she says. Rebecca is a woman who has faced challenges in her life, and dealt with them the best she could given her circumstances. She sees herself as providing a service to people who have needs, no matter how debauched the outside world deems them. They sat talking mutual challenges they have faced and politics (she’s supporting Hillary); Rebecca reflected upon the irony that many of the people who supported the torture at Abu Ghraib would want her closed down. It was in this conversation that Shankbone saw that humanity can be found anywhere, including in places that appear on the surface to cater to the inhumanity some people in our society feel towards themselves, or others.

“The best way to describe it,” says Bill, “is if you had a kink, and you had a wife and you had two kids, and every time you had sex with your wife it just didn’t hit the nail on the head. What would you do about it? How would you handle it? You might go through life feeling unfulfilled. Or you might say, ‘No, my kink is I really need to dress in women’s clothing.’ We’re that outlet. We’re not the evil devil out here, plucking people off the street, keeping them chained up for days on end.”

Below is David Shankbone’s interview with Bill & Rebecca, owners of Rebecca’s Hidden Chamber, a BDSM dungeon.

Thursday, March 5, 2009

An internal investigation by the United States Marine Corps into the crash of an F/A-18 jet into a San Diego house has blamed errors on the part of the pilot, his superiors and maintenance personnel for the accident which killed four people.

The report found that mechanics had noticed the aircraft had a faulty fuel transfer system in June 2008 but repairs were never made, with the defective jet performing 146 more sorties in this state before the December accident.

“While we did not find any evidence of criminal wrongdoing, the responsible parties are being held accountable for their part in this tragic accident,” said Maj. Gen. Randolph Alles of the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing. Four Marine squadron officers have been relieved of duty, as well as Navy officers. Eight enlisted Marines and one Navy sailor have been reprimanded. The pilot has been grounded.

On the day of the accident the pilot, Lt. Dan Neubauer, had just taken off from the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln when he reported that the aircraft’s right engine had low oil pressure.

Neubauer, who was still in training, shut the engine down as a precaution, leaving the plane operating on the left engine. The Abraham Lincoln’s captain and the ‘air boss’ suggested an emergency landing at the North Island military base, which was about 100 miles from the carrier. This would have given an approach from over the ocean.

Neubauer contacted his squadron bosses and instead opted to try to land at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, which was 11 more miles away and involved a flight path over San Diego. Neubauer also failed to read his own emergency checklists, instead having sections read to him by his squadron representatives on the ground. The squadron representatives at Miramar were unaware of all the details of the situation on board and did not read out all the relevant sections.

Officers at Miramar were informed of the fact that a warning light indicated the remaining engine was running low on fuel. However, they did not take heed in what was described by the report as a “critical mistake”. In fact, the plane’s tanks had plenty of fuel, but the engine trouble was caused by the faulty fuel flow system, which fed the left engine. Officers also failed to watch the plane’s location properly.

Upon final approach to Miramar, Neubauer thought, incorrectly, that he could not turn right, towards his inoperative engine. Instead, he conducted a long leftwards loop to line up. The maneuver took around ninety seconds to complete and starved the left engine of fuel, causing it to flameout. At this point the jet fell towards the ground and the pilot attempted to aim the aircraft for a canyon, where it could crash safely. However, the plane did not stay airborne and struck a house at an estimated 150 mph. It is thought that two more seconds would have been enough for the plane to reach the canyon.

Instead, the crash killed four people inside the house; a grandmother, her daughter and her two granddaughters. The children’s father, Dong Yun Yoon, was among those briefed on the publication of the report, alongside politicians in Washington and San Diego. The pilot safely ejected after holding on as long as possible, the report stating that a second or two more would have likely resulted in his death.

The investigation has a number of implications. The fuel problem was not followed up on as it was not on a list of faults requiring immediate repair, but nonetheless 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing operations officer Col. John Rupp said keeping it in the air “was collectively poor judgment on the part of the squadron’s maintenance department.” The commanding officer, operations officer, aviation maintenance officer and operations duty officer have all been relieved of duty, while eight other marines and a sailor were reprimanded.

Maintenance standards have been upgraded and emergency training enhanced as a result. Flight simulators are set to include a scenario based on the accident. Lt. Dan Neubauer has been grounded and it is up to the deputy commandant for aviation whether he will be allowed to return to the air. Immediately after the accident, all F/A-18s were grounded and inspected. The Marines issued a bulletin to all other operators of the aircraft worldwide to warn them of the circumstances.

So far, the Marines and the United States Navy have identified 40 F/A-18 Hornets with the same problem. None of these have crashed.