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Chevy Cruze peak range: 702 miles on 13.5 gallons of diesel
New diesel Chevy Cruze can go an estimated 702 miles on a single tank of fuel
The 52 mpg highway fuel economy numbers apply to the six-speed manual transmission diesel Cruze, which gets 30 mpg on city streets. The car also comes in a 9-speed automatic transmission version, which returns 47 mpg on the highway and 31 mpg in the city with start-stop technology regulating the engine.
fraud phone call from the IRS
This one is a first for me. The IRS has never called me before - either for real, or as part of a scam.
"This phone call is to inform you that you have been named in a lawsuit by the Internal Revenue Service. If you wish to settle the claim against you before the suit is filed, you should call 6466326448. Thank you, the Internal Revenue Service."
I wish I had recorded it, to be sure that I got the phrasing precise, and the phone number accurate, but there it is, very close to what I heard. Note that neither my name, nor my wife's name was used - no names at all. Some mysterious "you". I used Google Talk to try calling the number, and got some tones, and a message that the number is not in service.
Funny that they didn't repeat the phone number - even scammers know that people don't always have a pen and paper in reach. I would think the scammers would want to make sure that the victim knows what number to call, so he can be properly scammed.
Ahhhh - looking at the telephone, I see that I got the number wrong - it is 6466321448. Dial that number, and I get a busy signal. I know it's the busy season, but, doesn't the IRS have like unlimited phone lines coming in? Gonna try a couple more times, just to get an idea how the scam works . . .
entering the number into Google leads me to this page, http://mobilecallertracker.com/phone-search/6466321 and 2/3 down the page, I find the number. So, the IRS callback number is a mobile phone? Wow - THAT is interesting!! I've heard that landlines are pretty much obsolete, but the IRS is all mobile now?
Well, still busy - I don't want to spend my day trying to scam a scammer. Maybe I'll try a couple more times later today.
Suggestions, anyone? I suppose I should inform my local sheriff's office of this call - maybe they will ask the local radio stations to warn their listeners - or something.
https://www.irs.gov/uac/stay-vigilant-against-bogus-irs-phone-calls-and-emails
https://www.treasury.gov/tigta/contact_report_scam.shtml
Online complaint made - I guess I've done my civic duty of the day.
Why does the U.S. still let 12-year-olds get married?
Mod journal flamebait!!!
Why does the United States still let 12-year-olds get married?
This is an opinion piece in WaPo written by the founder of a nonprofit. archive.is link because I figured out WaPo has a 5 article/month limit paywall.
While most states set 18 as the minimum marriage age, exceptions in every state allow children younger than 18 to marry, typically with parental consent or judicial approval. How much younger? Laws in 27 states do not specify an age below which a child cannot marry.
Unchained At Last, a nonprofit I founded to help women resist or escape forced marriage in the United States, spent the past year collecting marriage license data from 2000 to 2010, the most recent year for which most states were able to provide information. We learned that in 38 states, more than 167,000 children — almost all of them girls, some as young 12 — were married during that period, mostly to men 18 or older. Twelve states and the District of Columbia were unable to provide information on how many children had married there in that decade. Based on the correlation we identified between state population and child marriage, we estimated that the total number of children wed in America between 2000 and 2010 was nearly 248,000.
Turns out R2D*2pa$tramimacaronomy is doing just fine stateside, for the moment...
Elizabeth Warren Silenced on the Senate Floor
Micron 2017 Roadmap
Micron 2017 Roadmap Detailed: 64-layer 3D NAND, GDDR6 Getting Closer, & CEO Retiring
Worth a look, but not a submission just yet.
Trudeau avoids poking the "grizzly bear" Trump
Canada's Trudeau decides not to poke U.S. 'grizzly bear' for now
Just play it cool and use Canada's great strength: utter invisibility despite sharing a border with the United States.
Supreme Court: Apprentice Edition
Trump is reportedly going to summon two finalists for the position to the announcement, at 8 PM EST. There can only be one.
2.5 GB/s, 2 TB M.2 SSD
Mushkin Announces Helix SSDs: 2.5 GB/s, 3D MLC NAND, SM2260, 2 TB Capacity
Saliva is dribbling down my shirt.
I don't think this is the first 2 TB SSD in the M.2 form factor, so not really worth a submission, but damn is that one heck of a drive. Note the 3 year warranty.
More stuff:
Crypt keeper wasp is a parasite of a parasite
Physicists patent detonation technique to mass-produce graphene
CRISPR genome engineering research institute expands into agriculture, microbiology
Medical first, children had cancer cured with genetically engineered T-cells from another person
New antibody suppresses spread of HIV-1 in infected individuals
Printed human body parts could be available for human transplants within a few years
Organovo bioprinting human tissue for drug testing and within 6 years for implanting human livers
Evolutionary Biologist to Run for U.S. Senate (CA)
Bernie Madoff Speaks: "Ponzi Supernova"
Bernie Madoff is cornering the prison market on Swiss Miss hot chocolate
“One of the most important things about this story is that it is a mistake to view him as an outlier,” Fishman told MarketWatch. “He profited from the way financial systems work, which is a point most people don’t really grasp. He wasn’t a freak. He was sustained by the system, embraced by it, because it profited from him.”
[...] Madoff’s multidecade scheme unraveled in 2008, when the market collapse in the financial crisis caused a number of his investors to pull their holdings, but Fishman said he “was never really caught.”
“The system never really rejected Bernie,” he explained, noting that Madoff’s 150-year prison sentence only came after he admitted the fraud to his sons, who, on the advice of a lawyer, alerted authorities. When questioned, Madoff confessed.
“It’s clear to me that if he hadn’t confessed there would have been years of expensive work to get him convicted,” Fishman said, referring to the cost of an investigation and a trial. “Who knows, maybe if he had pulled down the gates on his fund, gone out and raised money, he might have been able to continue.”
Never-before-heard Bernie Madoff tapes reveal details of ruinous Ponzi scheme
Fishman, who conducted three hours of interviews with Madoff personally, points out that while the fraudster ruined many lives, roughly half of Madoff’s investors still ended up in the black. “Yeah, he was a criminal talent, with God-given gifts in a sense, but Madoff was Patient Zero,” Fishman said. “What really makes him a pandemic is all the feeder funds [who introduced new clients to Madoff] and the banks,” Fishman told the Guardian. “They take him around the world. They recruit investors, in Latin America and through Europe, and they basically pour gasoline on this dumpster fire. Madoff could have been kind of a local swindler until he meets this massive distribution network.”
[...] When an investigator asked to see a report that a legitimate firm would have on hand in the course of its normal businesses, Madoff’s second-in-command, Frank DiPascali, stalled for time while downstairs others printed out a faked report, put it in the refrigerator so it wouldn’t be obviously warm from the printer, and “played football with it”, Schwartz says – tossing it back and forth across the room like a football to make it look weathered.
Set dressing was also important: on the credenza behind his desk, Madoff displayed a sculpture by the renowned artist Claes Oldenburg of a giant black screw, listing a little to one side. The 1976 sculpture, called Soft Screw, drew nearly $50,000 at Sotheby’s when Madoff’s assets were sold off after his disgrace.
When financial regulators visited his firm’s offices, Madoff put the Soft Screw away.
