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President Obama's deal to normalize relations with Castro reminds us of a fantastic 1998 episode of the long-running animated series The Simpsons, "The Trouble With Trillions." In that episode, we learn that Montgomery Burns had made off with the $1 trillion bill that President Truman printed in 1945 to pay for Europe's postwar reconstruction. When the FBI finally uncovers Burns' deception, he flees the country, looking for an island to buy, and, flying over Cuba, decides that it "has 'freedom' written all over it." Burns, with Homer accompanying him, goes to see Castro, who just moments before was about to...

Sony executive at the heart of the leaked emails met with the civil rights activist to discuss battling an ‘exclusionary, almost all-white hierarchy’ in Hollywood.Amy Pascal, the embattled executive whose personal emails were exposed by the hack on Sony Pictures, has met with civil rights advocate Al Sharpton to discuss white bias in Hollywood. The meeting was prompted by leaked emails from Pascal to producer Scott Rudin, in which the pair joke about Barack Obama’s likely taste in films. “Would he like to finance some movies?” Rudin asked, ahead of Pascal meeting the president. “I doubt it. Should I ask...

For many conservatives, agreeing with Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) is a rare occurrence. Warren is a pure collectivist who views strong government control as a critical mechanism for politicians to "improve" the lives of Americans as they see fit. Her liberal voting record and view that individual financial success creates a social obligation to pay heavy taxes reinforce those perspectives. Yet, in her recent opposition to federal spending legislation, Warren correctly noted that reinstituting federal insurance for riskier financial products like credit default swaps was a concession to the largest banks in America contrary to the interests of most taxpayers....

Analysts examining the effect of the oil price’s precipitous decline on companies should spare a thought for stripper well operators, the mom-and-pop businesses that coax the last trickles of crude from long-ago drilled holes. Although tiny in isolation — the average stripper well yields less than 2 b/d — there are more than 400,000 such wells in the US supplying about 11 per cent of US oil production. They produced 700,000 barrels per day in 2012, the latest year for which data are available — as much as the OPEC member Qatar, according to data from the Interstate Oil &...

PepsiCo wants in. So do Caterpillar and Marriott International. Within hours of President Obama’s historic move to restore full diplomatic relations with Cuba, companies in the United States were already developing strategies to introduce their products and services to a market they have not been in for the better part of 50 years — if ever. “Cuba is a potential market for John Deere products and services,” Ken Golden, a spokesman for Deere & Company, a leading maker of farm and construction equipment based in Illinois, said by email. But while there may be robust opportunities for some companies, especially...

It’s been almost five years since the passage of the Affordable Care Act and its promise to “bend the cost curve downward” for Americans and their health care. More than five years have passed since the technical start of the recovery and the Obama administration’s bragging about jobs and economic expansion. The two combined should produce noticeable improvement in the lives of Americans, yes? According to the latest CBS News poll, no (via Jeff Dunetz): Fifty-two percent of Americans say they find basic medical care affordable, but that’s down from 61 percent last December. Today, for 46 percent of...

Coming to a theater near you: Al Sharpton.​ Hollywood ​came to the Rev. Al Thursday as embattled Sony exec Amy Pascal ​met ​privately with the ​black leader for 90 minutes ​in a bid to fix the fallout from the ​cyberhacking ​leak of embarrassing, racially charged emails. Pascal agreed to let Sharpton have a say in how Sony makes motion pictures, in an effort to combat what he called “inflexible and immovable racial exclusion in Hollywood.” “We have agreed to having a working group deal with the racial bias and lack of diversity in Hollywood,” said Sharpton. He said Sony would...

(EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy) The federal SWAT team of nearly two dozen heavily armed agents from the EPA, FBI, and other agencies descended on the Canal Refining Co. in Church Point, Louisiana. Their target: Hubert P. Vidrine, Jr., the plant manager. His crime? Allegedly storing hazardous materials. His employees were herded up and treated like criminals. They were prevented from using the restrooms for several hours, as well as being denied the right to call their homes and daycare centers to make plans to have their children picked up. That was in September 1996. It took the federal government...

The West shouldn’t stoke the fires engulfing Russia’s wounded economy. Talk in Washington and Brussels this week of levying further economic sanctions on Russia seems counterproductive and will only make matters worse for all parties involved. Like it or not, Russia’s economy has grown simply “too big to fail,” and its political and military might is too dangerous to ignore. The West might have better luck in advancing its goals in the region by helping, not hurting, the Russian bear in its time of need.

Chinese Firm Buys Los Angeles Airport Marriott For $160 million The Los Angeles Airport Marriott, which sold for $160 million, has 1,004 rooms in 18 stories. The buyer is expected to make about $35 million worth of improvements. (Asia Pacific Capital Co.) By ROGER VINCENT The Airport Marriott is one of the largest hotels in Los Angeles County XLD Group also bought the 487-room Torrance Marriott South Bay hotel from DiamondRock late last year A Chinese real estate developer has purchased the vast Los Angeles Airport Marriott for $160 million and vowed to make substantial improvements. It was the largest...

EU Court Rules That Fatness 'Can Constitute A Disability’ EU court ruling means that British bosses will be required to treat obese workers as "disabled" providing them with larger seats, special parking spaces and other facilities The judgment means British companies will be required to treat obese workers as "disabled", providing them with larger seats, special parking spaces and other facilities Photo: PA By Bruno Waterfield 18 Dec 2014 Fatness "can constitute a disability" for the purposes of European Union equality at work legislation, Europe's highest court has ruled. The judgment means British companies will be required to treat obese...

U.S. Rep. John K. Delaney said Thursday that toll lanes might be needed to ease traffic and congestion on Interstate 270, a corridor vital to the future of Montgomery and Frederick counties. Leaders in the region must make sure the highway operates as efficiently as possible, Delaney (D-Dist. 6) of Potomac told legislators and business leaders from the two counties Thursday in Frederick at a meeting on the I-270 corridor. Del. Michael Hough (D) of Brunswick, an incoming state senator from District 4, said Virginia has done a good job of combining ideas such as high-occupancy toll lanes and private...

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak has officially become an Australian resident, is planning to make the Apple Isle his home – appropriately enough – and says one day he’d like it said he lived and died an Australian. The man who formed Apple with Steve Jobs in California back in 1976 has just had ­“permanent residency” stamped in his passport. He originally applied for Australian citizenship in 2012. He’s since taken steps to move more aspects of his life Down Under; in October he became an adjunct professor at the University of Technology in Sydney. He says he’s thinking about a...

Don’t Let the Grinch Steal Christmas December 16, 2014 Posted by: Stephen Coty, Chief Security EvangelistLeave a comment Blog Contributions by Tyler Borland, Sr. Security Researcher and Stephen Coty, Chief Security Evangelist, Alert Logic Since we are in the thick of the holiday season, we are analyzing which operating systems support the needs of e-commerce and brick and mortar retail shops. Due to the lower cost of ownership and efficiencies such as a non-resource heavy operating system that allow for applications to run more smoothly, we found that Linux is dominating when it comes to e-commerce site deployment. According...

A BBC investigation for Panorama has exposed poor working conditions in factories making Apple products in China. The undercover team secretly filmed the iPhone production line and found Apple's promises to protect workers were routinely broken. One undercover reporter - making parts for Apple computers - had to work 18 days without a day off. Other workers were filmed falling asleep. Apple say they will investigate any concerns brought to them. The BBC's Richard Bilton reports from Shanghai. [VIDEO]

A BBC investigation for Panorama has exposed poor working conditions in factories making Apple products in China. The undercover team secretly filmed the iPhone production line and found Apple's promises to protect workers were routinely broken. One undercover reporter - making parts for Apple computers - had to work 18 days without a day off. Other workers were filmed falling asleep. Apple say they will investigate any concerns brought to them. The BBC's Richard Bilton reports from Shanghai. [VIDEO]

Economists long argued that, just as buggy-makers gave way to car factories, technology would create as many jobs as it destroyed. Now many are not so sure. At a Silicon Valley hotel, a bellhop robot delivers items to people’s rooms. Last spring, a software algorithm wrote a breaking news article about an earthquake that The Los Angeles Times published. Although fears that technology will displace jobs are at least as old as the Luddites, there are signs that this time may really be different. The technological breakthroughs of recent years — allowing machines to mimic the human mind — are...

U.S. stocks surged on Thursday, extending Wall Street's best day of the year, after the Federal Reserve said it would be patient in increasing interest rates. "The reality is markets were hit with we're not sure what's happening and why, as oil has been acting as something akin to a global interest rate. The good news is the Fed is aware of what is going on, and they want to be friendly, so people are hopefully in better cheer," said Jack Caffrey, equity portfolio manager at J.P. Morgan.

Brittany Noble-Jones, a reporter at KMOV in St. Louis, tweets that the Big Lots retail store in Ferguson, Missouri, is shutting down. While the corporate office won’t comment on whether the closure is related to the post-Ferguson riots and protests, other small businesses have told Noble-Jones that they are “feeling the pinch.” Way to go, social justice mob.

I have a theory as to why Americans don't worry all that much about global warming: High-profile purveyors of climate change don't push for reductions in greenhouse gases so much as focus on berating people who do not agree with their opinions. They call themselves champions of "the science" yet focus on ideology more than tangible results. Their language is downright evangelical. Recently, science guy Bill Nye joined other experts who objected to the media's use of the term "climate skeptic." They released a statement that concluded, "Please stop using the word 'skeptic' to describe deniers." Deniers? Like Judas? Why,...