http://ap.google.com/…

The U.S. military, with help from Seattle startup Delve Networks, has launched a video-sharing Web site for troops, their families and supporters, a year and a half after restricting access to YouTube and other video sites.

TroopTube, as the new site is called, lets people register as members of one of the branches of the armed forces, family, civilian Defense Department employees or supporters. Members can upload personal videos from anywhere with an Internet connection, but a Pentagon employee screens each for taste, copyright violations and national security issues.

Part of Delve’s work was to build speedy tools for approving and sorting incoming videos. Its technology also crunches video files into several sizes and automatically plays the one that best suits viewers’ Internet connection speeds.

But the startup’s real forte is making sure searches on the site turn up the best video results. Delve’s system turns a video’s sound into a text transcript. It pares unimportant words like “this” and “that,” then compares what’s left against a massive database of words commonly uttered in proximity to each other, collected from crawling hundreds of millions of Web pages.

The result: Even if speech recognition software trips on the one word someone is searching for, there’s a good chance Delve can still deliver relevant results.

In May 2007, the Defense Department banned employees and soldiers from accessing sites including YouTube and MySpace, citing security and bandwidth issues. Delve Chief Executive Alex Castro called TroopTube a “retention tool” aimed at a generation of soldiers who bring laptops to the front lines.

“A lot of people are excited in the company to be doing something for the people who make sacrifices,” said Castro, his eyes tearing. “We’re proud of this.”

So to fix bandwidth issues they introduced a new system which while providing multiple streams is still a heavy when compared to regular traffic? My guess is it’s those things listed in the title which were the real problem.

http://www.bloomberg.com/…

JPMorgan Chase & Co., the third- biggest U.S. bank by assets, agreed to acquire Washington Mutual Inc.’s deposits and branches for $1.9 billion after regulators seized the thrift in the biggest bank failure in U.S. history.

Customers withdrew $16.7 billion from WaMu accounts since Sept. 16, leaving the Seattle-based bank “unsound,” the Office of Thrift Supervision said today. WaMu’s branches will open tomorrow and customers will have full access to all their accounts, Sheila Bair, chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., said on a conference call.

“JPMorgan is getting a steal compared with what they were going to pay,” said Scott Adams, a pension and investment analyst at the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees in Oakland, California, which owns WaMu shares. “It’s very tragic.”

WaMu collapsed as its credit rating was slashed to junk and its stock price tumbled. Facing $19 billion of losses on soured mortgage loans, the lender put itself up for sale last week after firing CEO Kerry Killinger this month. The bank named Alan Fishman as his replacement on Sept. 8, agreeing to pay him a $7.5 million signing bonus and $1 million salary.

JPMorgan won’t acquire WaMu’s liabilities, including claims by shareholders and subordinated and senior debt holders, the FDIC said.

The consolidation continues. Any bets on who’s next?

http://www.boston.com/…

RENO - A few tents cropped up by the railroad tracks, pitched by men left with nowhere to go once the emergency winter shelter closed for the summer.

Then others appeared - people who had lost their jobs to the ailing economy, or newcomers who had moved to Reno for work and found no one was hiring.

Within weeks, more than 150 people were living in tents big and small, barely a foot apart in a patch of dirt slated to be a parking lot for a campus of shelters Reno is building for its homeless population.

Like many other cities, Reno has found itself with a “tent city” - an encampment of people who had nowhere else to go.

From Seattle to Athens, Ga., homeless advocacy groups and city agencies are reporting the most visible rise in homeless encampments in a generation.

Nearly 61 percent of local and state homeless coalitions say they’ve experienced a rise in homelessness since the foreclosure crisis began in 2007, according to a report by the National Coalition for the Homeless. The group says the problem has worsened since the report’s release in April, with foreclosures mounting, gas and food prices rising, and the job market tightening.

“It’s clear that poverty and homelessness have increased,” said Michael Stoops, acting executive director of the coalition. “The economy is in chaos, we’re in an unofficial recession, and Americans are worried, from the homeless to the middle class, about their future.”

While the middle class is being wiped out and these tent towns are gathering more and more residents the federal government is bailing out the elite. Things just keep getting worse.

Got this from the Bob Barr 2008 campaign this morning:

Last Friday I wrote you with a clever message soliciting an $8 gift for the Bob Barr for President campaign._ It was, after all, 8-8-08 and I figured perhaps an appeal to your superstitious side may work.

But unless our computer is wrong, it didn’t._ I’ll admit it, my feelings were hurt - a little.

So today I write to tell you about how good fortune has fallen on several of our supporters who wrote to tell us what happened after giving their first $8 in support of Bob Barr.

__ _+ + +__ _Larry J. of Miami won the Florida Lottery and can now afford to give much more.

___ + + +__ _Karen T. of Seattle reports meeting the man of her dreams and thinks this could lead to a beautiful marriage and a lifetime of happiness.

__ _+ + + __ _John M. of San Antonio told us that his warts suddenly disappeared.

__ _+ + +__ _Kyle G. of Nashville writes that all of the weeds in his yard had disappeared.

__ _+ + +__ _Kevin B. of Akron says that after six months of unemployment, he’s got a job.

__ _+ + +__ _And Alan C. of Portland met the woman of his dreams…in Seattle.

Think of what you may have missed out on….

OK, I’ll admit it, I made all of this up._ But I’m not going to give up._ Shane Cory, our deputy campaign manager who has a cubicle next door to mine, suggested I sweeten the deal.

So here it is._ Five bucks from you today and I’ll send you a Bob Barr bumper sticker absolutely free._ (Shane wanted me to double the offer like that guy on TV selling cleaning products, but come on, this IS SERIOUS business.)

Come on, $5 is not much more than the cost of one of those fancy coffees from Starbucks._ In fact, $5 is less than lunch at McDonalds…and besides, do you really want those calories and fat grams?_ To donate, click here: https://www.bobbarr2008.com/donate/?c=bb0816

Please, $5 today - and I’ll never nag you again._ Thanks.

Sincerely,

Robert Stuber, the official Bob Barr beggar

This isn’t the only donation solictitation I’ve seen from the Barr campaign with this type of pathetic plea. He’s not alone though. McCain’s campaign has sent out a few emails that are almost as sad.

Barr is going to be in NYC this upcoming Monday. I’m not yet sure if I’ll be attending. I’ve been saying he still needs to convince me to vote for him… perhaps this is his chance. What I do know is he’s not getting the $250 VIP donation required so I may hang out for an hour before he mingles with the regular fokes.

http://www.themonitor.com/…

Preparations for Tropical Storm Dolly include plans by the federal government for thousands of illegal immigrants in custody at the detention center.

But U.S. Border Patrol agents at the Sarita checkpoint will not stop motorists evacuating from a hurricane, an official said Monday.

“We’re not going to be stopping people and asking where they’re from,” said Lloyd Easterling, a spokesman for the Border Patrol in Washington, D.C. “We don’t want to slow the evacuation process. Life is paramount at this point.”

Isn’t that nice of them. Tom from New Hampshire on last night’s FTL said that representitive Ciro Rodriguez, who was on a plane with Ron Paul which had to make an emergency landing yesterday in New Orleans, said that people evacuating should bring identification just to be sure. Never know when the thugs will change their minds.

In other news, the police state wants to make it easier for you to be harassed.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/…

TSA asked luggage makers to come up with prototype designs that will make it easier to view a laptop in the X-ray machines, basically by building in a place to store the laptop in a back or front compartment where there are no straps, pockets, zippers etc. Cables and chargers would have to be stored in side pouches.

“We’re looking to see what works in terms of fewer obstructions in the bag itself that often mask what’s really in it,” said Dwayne Baird, a TSA spokesman in Seattle. “One of the biggest things we hear is people saying, ‘we’re tired of pulling out our laptops.”‘

TSA says not having to remove laptops would speed up security lines and reduce the number of claims it gets for computers damaged during screening.

One manufacturer says it hopes to have a bag ready by this fall that will meet TSA’s specifications. Tustin, Calif.-based Pathfinder Luggage will begin producing a rolling style briefcase (14 x 8 x 17 inches) with wheels and separate zippered compartments that would retail for around $100.

The laptop changes would follow on the TSA’s new “Black Diamond” program that calls for passengers to segregate themselves into color-coded security lines based on their traveling expertise.

In place at one security check point at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, it calls for travelers to voluntarily go to different lanes — black for “experts,” meaning frequent fliers who pack light, know the security drill and won’t hold up the line; blue for “casual travelers” who fly just a few times a year and may not be familiar with all the new rules; and green for families with children or others needing special help.

Nice to know the criminals want to make the victim as comfortable as possible. They wouldn’t be able to continue if they started getting all uppity.

http://ap.google.com/

SEATTLE (AP) - Timothy Garon’s face and arms are hauntingly skeletal, but the fluid building up in his abdomen makes the 56-year-old musician look eight months pregnant.

His liver, ravaged by hepatitis C, is failing. Without a new one, his doctors tell him, he will be dead in days.

But Garon’s been refused a spot on the transplant list, largely because he has used marijuana, even though it was legally approved for medical reasons.

“I’m not angry, I’m not mad, I’m just confused,” said Garon, lying in his hospital bed a few minutes after a doctor told him the hospital transplant committee’s decision Thursday.

With the scarcity of donated organs, transplant committees like the one at the University of Washington Medical Center use tough standards, including whether the candidate has other serious health problems or is likely to drink or do drugs.

And with cases like Garon’s, they also have to consider - as a dozen states now have medical marijuana laws - if using dope with a doctor’s blessing should be held against a dying patient in need of a transplant.

Most transplant centers struggle with the how to deal with people who have used marijuana, said Dr. Robert Sade, director of the Institute of Human Values in Health Care at the Medical University of South Carolina.

It takes about 14 years (on the high-end) to become a doctor:

• 4-5 years of college
• 4 years of medical school
• 3-5 years of residency
• x years (if you specialize)

It’s also not uncommon for doctors to begin their practice with over $100,000 in student loans and other indebtedness.

That being said, I’d like to think that with all that time and money invested, these “doctors” would know better.
Of course not. Instead we get ignorant statements like these:

“Marijuana, unlike alcohol, has no direct effect on the liver. It is however a concern … in that it’s a potential indicator of an addictive personality,” Sade said.

“The concern is that patients who have been using it will not be able to stop,” Reyes said.