Reading A Novel Exercises "Muscles" In The Brain, Researchers Find

Hector Tobar at the Los Angeles Times offers a piece on what researchers found out about the brain when they conducted a study of people who read Robert Harris' novel Pompeii.

We all know that reading a novel can transport you, delight you and intrigue you while you’re reading it. Now, thanks research by scientists at Emory University, we know that immersing yourself in a novel causes measurable physical changes in the brain that can be detected up to five days after the reader closes the book.

The Emory researchers, in a paper for the journal Brain Connectivity, compared the effect to "muscle memory."

"The neural changes that we found associated with physical sensation and movement systems suggest that reading a novel can transport you into the body of the protagonist," neuroscientist Gregory Berns said, according to a report in the journal Science Codex. "We already knew that good stories can put you in someone else's shoes in a figurative sense. Now we're seeing that something may also be happening biologically."

 

You can read the read the rest of the piece via the below link:

 

http://www.latimes.com/books/jacketcopy/la-et-jc-reading-a-novel-makes-muscles-in-the-brain-researchers-find-20140103,0,6975108.story#axzz2pWGhyTTL 

Former Bank Director Who Faked Own Death Is Captured

The U.S Justice Depatment released the below information on January 2nd:

BROOKLYN, NY—Earlier today, Aubrey Lee Price was presented at the federal courthouse in Brunswick, Georgia, near where he was arrested. The defendant, who sent acquaintances a suicide note stating that he planned to kill himself by throwing himself off a high speed ferry boat in Florida, has been wanted since June 27, 2012, when the Honorable Viktor V. Pohorelsky, United States Magistrate Judge for the Eastern District of New York, issued a warrant for Price’s arrest based on a complaint filed by the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York.

At the time, Price was charged with wire fraud in connection with his use of brokerage accounts in New York to misappropriate millions of dollars belonging to a bank in southern Georgia where Price was a director. A grand jury in Brooklyn later expanded the charges against Price to include securities fraud in connection with Price’s theft of funds from both the bank and other investors in investment funds controlled by Price. The defendant also faces a charge in the Southern District of Georgia.

The arrest was announced by Loretta E. Lynch, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York and George Venizelos, Assistant Director-in-Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation, New York Field Office (FBI).

According to the indictment, Price managed investment funds PFG LLC (“PFG”) and the Montgomery Growth Fund (“Montgomery Growth”). Starting in or about June 2009, PFG raised approximately $40 million from approximately 115 investors from across the nation. Price unsuccessfully invested PFG funds in various equity securities, options, and real estate, including farms in South America. To cover up his losses, Price allegedly lied to his investors by posting fake account statements on a secure PFG website that fraudulently reflected fictitious assets and fabricated investment returns.

The indictment further states that, starting in or about January 2011, Price became a director of Montgomery Bank & Trust (“MB&T”), a financial institution in Ailey, Georgia. After telling MB&T that he would invest the bank’s capital in U.S. Treasury securities, Price instead lost much of the bank’s money by investing in risky equity securities and options. Price also embezzled MB&T money to pay redemptions to some PFG investors. The indictment charges that Price covered up his embezzlement and losses of MB&T’s funds by giving the bank’s management fabricated documents falsely indicating that approximately $17 million was on deposit in the bank’s name at a large financial services firm in New York.

“Aubrey Lee price created a life and death out of whole cloth, telling hundreds of investors and a Georgia bank that their money was safe when he was flying high, and telling the world he was dead when his lies crashed down around him,” stated United States Attorney Lynch. “But Price proved as unsuccessful at faking his own death as he was at faking his victims’ investments. Every person who seeks to harm our financial markets through fraud should be on notice. With the help of our law enforcements partners, both federal and local, we will find you, and we will hold you accountable for your behavior in a court of law.” Ms. Lynch expressed her grateful appreciation to the Securities and Exchange Commission, Atlanta Regional Office, and the Lowndes County Georgia Sheriff’s Department for their cooperation and assistance in the investigation. She also thanked the Glynn County Georgia Sheriff’s Department, who arrested the defendant following a traffic stop.

The charges in the indictment are merely allegations, and the defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.

The government’s case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys David C. Woll, Jr. and Brian Morris.

Snowden, Defector

The editors at National Review respond to the New York Times' call for amnesty for NSA leaker Edward Snowden.

The New York Times has called for the U.S. government to offer amnesty to Edward Snowden, the NSA contractor who broke his oath to that same government and has severely damaged the work it does to keep the U.S. safe.

A tiny proportion of Snowden’s disclosures, if any at all, have concerned unequivocally illegal work by the U.S. government. Regarding the NSA’s infamous metadata program, the Times relies on a federal judge’s ruling that it is probably unconstitutional — but another federal judge has disagreed.

That metadata system is overseen by Congress and is regularly reviewed by a classified federal court.

It is possible the Supreme Court will strike down the program, but the constitutional precedent from 1974’s Smith v. Maryland regarding metadata is quite clear. The Times’ favored ruling, which argues that Smith has been invalidated by technological advances, is much less convincing, and in any case has to be heard by the nation’s highest court.

... What is most striking about Snowden’s leaks is the sheer amount of them that have nothing to do with Americans’ privacy at all. Snowden stole and has now helped publish documents that lay out the entirety of the U.S.’s classified budget, detail American-run intelligence programs abroad that have no effect on the privacy of those protected by our laws, and reveal the intelligence work of our allies, too. Regardless of the efficacy of the programs that may now be halted, exposing reams of data on the work of U.S. intelligence agencies sets their work back years, and leaves America less safe.

... Snowden hasn’t exposed clearly illegal work by the U.S. government that he couldn’t have shed light on or halted any other way. (He claims to have spoken to NSA superiors, which they deny, and that is just one of the possible avenues.) He should therefore be punished like anyone else who breaks his oath to keep classified information secret.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/367464/snowden-defector-editors

NSA Intelligence-Gathering Programs Keep Us Safe

Former CIA deputy director John McLaughlin explains why we need the NSA in a piece in the  Washington Post.

It’s time we all came to our senses about the National Security Agency (NSA). If it is true, as many allege, that the United States went a little nuts in its all-out pursuit of al-Qaeda after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, it is equally true that we are going a little nuts again in our dogged pursuit of the post-Snowden NSA.

Those who advocate sharply limiting the agency’s activities ought to consider that its work is the very foundation of U.S. intelligence.    

I don’t mean to diminish the role of other intelligence agencies, and I say this as a 30-year veteran of the Central Intelligence Agency who is “CIA” through and through. But in most cases, the NSA is the starting point for determining what holes need to be filled through other means of intelligence-collection. That’s because its information on foreign developments is so comprehensive and generally so reliable. It is the core of intelligence support to U.S. troops in battle. Any efforts to “rein in” the agency must allow for the possibility that change risks serious damage to U.S. security and the country’s ability to navigate in an increasingly uncertain world.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/nsa-intelligence-gathering-programs-keep-us-safe/2014/01/02/0fd51b22-7173-11e3-8b3f-b1666705ca3b_story.html?wpisrc=nl_opinions

Philly Mob On Trial: Frankie The Fixer's Encore Not As Sweet For The Defense

Veteran organized crime reporter George Anastasia is covering the federal organized crime trial in Philadelphia for Bigtrial.net.

Frankie the Fixer changed his tune.

And the music wasn't quite as sweet for the defense in the racketeering retrial of mob boss Joseph "Uncle Joe" Ligambi and his nephew, George Borgesi.

A government informant whom the prosecution opted not to call this time, Frank DiGiacomo, 49, took the stand today as the final defense witness in the eight-week old trial that is expected to go to the jury next week.

While DiGiacomo, an admitted con man, hustler and mob enforcer, helped the defense with his testimony in the first trial last year, his performance this morning was a mixed bag, not as pointedly hostile toward key government witness Louis "Bent Finger Lou" Monacello and on occasion damaging to Ligambi and Borgesi.

Last year, much to the prosecution's chagrin, DiGiacomo discredited Monacello and undermined much of his testimony. This time, while still labeling his former mob associate as a "greedy," sneaky and dangerous individual, he emphasized that both he and Monacello worked for and reported to Borgesi and Ligambi.

"I never called him boss," DiGiacomo said of his relationship to Monacello, a statement that was at odds with his testimony in the first trial.

"That was my boss, right there," he added, pointing to the 74-year-old Ligambi seated at the defense table.
You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.bigtrial.net/2014/01/frankie-fixers-encore-not-as-sweet-for.html

ABC's 'The Assets' Looks At A CIA Traitor

ABC's Nightline looks at the upcoming TV series that dramatizes the Aldrich Ames spy case.

You can watch the news video, which includes interviews with Ames and Sandy Grimes, the former CIA officer that helped bring him down, via the below link:

http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/video/assets-capturing-cia-traitor-21376797

You can also read a previous post on the Ames case via the below link:

http://www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2013/12/the-assets-explores-real-life-aldrich.html  

Happy New Year: Charles Krauthammer On Things That Matter For 2014

Charles Krauthammer, syndicated columnists, FoxNews contributor and author of Things That Matter, offers his view on things that should matter 2014.

You can watch the FoxNews video via the below link:

http://video.foxnews.com/v/2996152052001/charles-krauthammer-on-things-that-matter-for-2014/?intcmp=features