Saturday, January 15, 2011
New rules by IRS to benefit whistleblowers
Friday, January 14, 2011; 1:20 PM
Whistleblowers and their advocates have long complained that they are unappreciated - or downright resented - at the Internal Revenue Service, but the agency on Friday gave them a pleasant surprise.
Months after narrowing the circumstances under which whistleblowers could collect rewards for exposing tax evasion, the IRS reversed its position.
"This is really I think the first tangible evidence that the senior leadership [at the IRS] is getting behind the whistleblower program and wants to make it work," said lawyer Dean Zerbe, who represents whistleblowers.
At issue is the IRS's use of a law Zerbe helped write when he was Republican tax counsel to the Senate Finance Committee under Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa). The idea was to give people with knowledge of unpaid taxes an incentive to help the government collect the money.
The rewards can total as much as 30 percent of the funds the IRS recoups.
But when the IRS updated a procedural manual for agency personnel last year, it staked out positions that could block rewards to whistleblowers in certain cases. The manual said the tipsters would be shut out if their information merely stopped a refund or reduced a credit.
The app that can read your mind: iPhone brainwave detector was only a matter of time
By MATT BLAKE
Last updated at 3:56 AM on 15th January 2011
It's a device that would be more at home on the set of a Star Wars movie than the streets of Britain.
But an iPhone application has been developed that can read minds.
The XWave allows users to control on-screen objects with their minds as well as train their brains to control attention spans and relaxation levels.
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No-brainer: The XWave allows users to control on-screen objects with their minds as well as train their brains to control attention spans and relaxation levels
The device - that could confuse Luke Skywalker himself - is the latest in the field of emerging mind-controlled games and devices and works via a headset strapped around the user's forehead, plugging into the iPhone jack.
A state-of-the-art sensor within the device can then read the user's brainwaves through the skull, converting them into digital signals before displaying them in various colours on the iPhone screen.
State of the art: A sensor within the device can then read the user's brainwaves through the skull, converting them into digital signals before displaying them in various colours on the iPhone screen
And as the mind focuses on a particular task the graphics change, indicating the user's level of concentration or relaxation.
The high-tech sensor was developed by innovations giant PLX Devices using technology that has for years been used by doctors to treat epilepsy and seizures in patients.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1346900/The-app-read-mind-iPhone-brainwave-detector-matter-time.html#ixzz1B716SV4r
‘Witch Hunt FBI’ tops google trends as gov’t critics targeted
Aaron Dykes
Prison Planet.com
Friday, January 14, 2011
Great job to our supporters once again, as another search term,‘Witch Hunt FBI’ has gone viraland reached #1 on Google Trends this Friday, January 14, 2011. The term is intended to bring attention to the fact that following a media hailstorm blaming the Loughner shootings on “rightwingers” and “conspiracy theorists,” the FBI has actually begun visiting the homes of dissenters who criticize members of Congress to investigate their intentions.